A Journey Along The Stars
by Deathzealot
Summary: With the loss of the Cylon Resurrection Ship, the Colonial Refugee Fleet has gained a respite from the attacks from the Cylons. Thanks to this the Fleet has decided to focus on gathering resources and to smooth out some internal issues. Into this, a new fleet of relative unknown ships has appeared. Who are they? Friend or Foe? Wayward Family Part 2. [nBSG/Macross Crossover Story]
1. Prelude: Forlorn Hope

**Disclaimer: I do not in any way own the franchises known as Macross or Battlestar Galactica, they are owned by their respective owners. I only claim to own the plot, the new characters, and everything else I have created for the purpose of this story. So please support the official release. Thank you. **

**Battlestar Galactica: Journey Along The Stars**

_**Part of the Wayward Family Series **_

_A Macross Frontier and Battlestar Galactica Crossover Story_

_Written by, _

_William R. Woods _

_aka, "deathzealot" or "deathzealotzero" _

**Foreword: **

To start things off, I like to welcome you all to the total rewrite of my old Lucky Miracle story, a Macross and Battlestar Galactica Crossover, which I decided to use as my project for this year's National Novel Writing Month. It will be quite different from the original story with new ideas and a new will being put into the story. Not to mention I am splitting the main story into two different shorter stories to make things a bit more different. Both are going to cover a different point of view of a different faction and characters. However, both stories are going to be crossovers, with them being crossed with Macross and Battlestar Galactica.

This story can be said to be the actual rewrite of the original Lucky Miracle story with it being based similarly, basically the Colonial Rag Tag Fleet finding something from Macross to help them in their flight from the Cylons. In Lucky Miracle that was a sole Macross Factory Ship found in the all-out destroyed remains of a Macross Colony Fleet. Here it is going to be a bit different for the Colonials will find a Colony Fleet that has been brutally torn apart and in desperation would fold which throws into a sector of space they really don't know a lot about without their fold drives where the Colonials find them. This Colony Fleet would be whittled down to almost nothing with only a few ships remaining, and an all-out destroyed Colony Ship.

The primary reason for such destruction to the fleet is that a full-on colony fleet would basically outright destroy the pursuing Cylons forces with little effort. Therefore, a smaller damaged fleet would be able to help get the Colonials back onto their feet while at the same time, the Colonials can help the colonists from the Fleet get back onto their own feet. Both sides would help one another giving them a sort of mutual understanding. Even then, if you want to see the Cylons get curb-stomped by a Macross Fleet there is the other story **Meeting Along The Stars,** which has a weakened but still strong fleet from the Macross Frontier's newly settled colony that ends up finding a Cylon force chasing another Colonial refugee fleet.

One last thing. I mentioned in the Foreword for **Meeting **that I am following information taken from the various background material, like the Variable Fighter Master File Books, and the Macross Chronicle magazine. While some of that info won't be that useful in this story compared to **Meeting,** there will still be some notable pieces of information that I am using for this story. That said, there are going to be some stuff that I am creating for the purpose of this story that is not from any of the background material. Some of it will I will be borrowing from other sources. Then we have Battlestar Galactica, which I am going to be using a mix of official stuff from the series and game along with some things I created for the purpose of the story. Just like Lucky Miracle.

Anyhow, I do believe that is enough for this foreword. It is already longer than the Foreword for **Meeting**. Time to get to the main event. So please sit back and enjoy the ride.

\- William R. Woods  
November 6, 2019

**Prelude: **Forlorn Hope

_The Vajra War ended on September 25, 2059AD, in orbit of the colony we now know as Terra Nova. However, during the battle, while the Macross Frontier Colony Fleet was starting to discover the horrible plans the Macross Galaxy had for the Vajra, numerous fleets of the insectoid-like aliens appeared out of Fold Space to attack various New United Nation Government colonies and colony fleets. One such fleet would be the Seventh Long Distance Colonization Fleet, led by the _Megaroad-07_, which had only recently fought off an attack by a small fleet of Uncultured Zentradi. Thanks to this the _Megaroad-07 _and her fleet were quite weakened leaving it easy prey to attacking Vajra under the control of the _Macross Galaxy _and its leadership. Before any help could be sent from the nearby Thirtieth Long Distance Colonization Fleet, the Seventh, and the _Megaroad-07 _went dark with only some battle debris being left behind to be found by the reinforcements. So far, no clue about what happened to the Seventh has been discovered, and like the _Megaroad-01 _many years before, there exist numerous theories that try to predict what happened to the missing colony fleet. Though that is all that they are theories, and like the _Megaroad-01 _before her, the _Megaroad-07 _has become just another mystery that may never be solved. _

Taken from a Report from the Galactic Network News Site  
Written by Dennis Lone, Circa. December 15, 2059 AD

**-o-o-o-**

**Argos Asteroid Belt  
****Ulysses Solar System  
****September 25, 2059AD **

The Seventh Long Range Colonization Fleet is one of the oldest active colonization fleets of the New United Nations Government, having launched from Earth on September 22, 2016. It is notable for several discoveries and its exploration of space, including the discovery of the Zolans, through that the Galactic Whales, the first alien life discovered by humanity since the Zentradi. It later found the Tirolian Cluster and the fallen empire of the Tirolians that once inhabited the cluster, which is now several constantly warring states. They have discovered numerous ruins of the fallen Protoculture civilization discovering various things about them and the Stellar Republic that they had built. They were also the first to run into an active part of the Supervision Army, and the brief battle that followed would go a long way to help the _Macross 7, _and it's fleet during the Varuta War years later. Due to this the Seventh and its flagship the _Megaroad-07 _has become quite famous across the various colonies and colony fleets of the New United Nations Government. There were numerous accounts along the media of the New United Nations that the _Megaroad-07 _and its fleet would continue exploring the galaxy till there was nothing left to explore.

However, that was all about to change as the sizeable _Megaroad-07 _Colony Ship, and its fleet was under attack by the relentless Vajra aliens. Three massive _Bishop _Class Mobile Fortresses and dozens of smaller _Knight _Class Carriers had arrived out of Fold Space before disgorging thousands of smaller Vajra organisms to brutally attack the colony fleet's escorts. A massive battle then erupted between the Vajra and the Colony Fleet, with numerous unprepared New United Nations Spacy ships falling to the unrelentless assault of the insectoid Vajra. Even the _Megaroad-07 _Colony Ship itself was not safe from this battle, having several of the large _Knight _Class Carriers firing their main guns at the unprepared colony ship, which literally cut it in half much to the shocked horror of the desperately fighting NUNS Forces. Other civilian vessels of the fleet fell to the smaller heavy reaction cannons of the Heavy Soldier Vajra, including the massive _Vulcan _Class Factory Ship.

All this horror was witnessed by Captain Marcus Rush from the command bridge of the newly constructed _Atoll _Class City Ship _Island Mayan, _which had been built to counteract the overpopulation onboard both the _Megaroad-07 _and the Habitation Section on the fleet's sole factory ship. Not to mention the ARMD-Sized Habitation Ships that the _Megaroad-07 _towed behind her in a similar way to the newer _Island Cluster _Class Colonization Ships, which were supposed to extend the aging colony ship's overall population. Captain Rush wasn't a combat officer having been trained as an engineer, which is why his command, the _Vestal _Class Support Ship _Anaheim _was docked with the City Ship in the first place and why he had been on board along with several members of his crew. He had been overseeing the final checks of the City Ship before the official delivery of the ship to the Colonization Fleet's government the next day. Now it looked like the Captain was pretty much the only calm senior commanding presence in the fleet with the death of several senior officers with the _Megaroad-07 _in two pieces and the destruction of every single of the fleet's remaining carriers. Still, Captain Rush had to be crazy to think up the plan that he was explaining to the remainder of the fleet's officers.

"This is crazy! Purposely overloading our Fold Drives is madness! Who knows what will happen when we do," a voice shouted through a holographic communication window in the almost silent command bridge of the support ship towards the red-headed uniformed man standing at the back of the bridge staring at the large holographic screens that made up the forward wall of the colony ship's command bridge. He could only sigh in some sadness at the slaughter going on knowing he was losing friends and maybe even some loved ones as the battle continue to go on. With that cheery thought, Marcus turned to look at the communication window.

"Commander Romero, yes it's crazy and insane, but it's our only hope. If we try to continue fighting the Vajra, we are dead. We can't seem to just Fold Out due to some sort of Fold jamming coming from those mobile fortresses. Even if we could Fold Out of here, we would be leaving behind the remains of the _Megaroad-07_, with who knows how many surviving civilians in shelters to the mercy of the Vajra. Therefore, if we go through with this plan, we can expand our Fold bubble by a significant amount, which will allow us to bring the shattered remains of the Colony Ship and along with several of our other wrecked ships with us in the fold. We have no choice but to do this," Marcus Rush explained to the older man that dominated the communication window. Commander Robert Romero had been the senior officer on board the recently constructed _Macross Pathfinder _Class Variable Battleship, the SDF/C-104 _Macross Vanguard_. It had been designed a couple years ago to serve as a mass-produced version of the older SDFN Class Super Dimensional Fortresses that had been produced to serve as centerpieces of the Short Range Colony Fleets in the 2010s and 2020s. Not to mention the _Battle _Class of the _New Macross _Colony Fleets. However, the price tag of such a project was higher than planned which saw further development of the class, which would see the _Macross Quarter _Class which was a quarter the size of any _Macross_-Type Ships. Still, the _Macross Pathfinder _Class where still quite powerful ships and a few colonies built them to serve as forward command ships or command ships of pathfinder groups paving the way for a colony fleet. The Seventh constructed their own _Macross Vanguard _to more easily take on Uncultured Zentradi fleets since they had been attacked by such a fleet a few months beforehand.

"Very well then Marcus, which ships are you going to use for this stunt of yours?" the other commander asked with a frown making Marcus nod his head at the older man. He quickly checked a small holographic screen showing notes of the engineering team and the Fold Drive Specialist Team.

"By our calculations, we would only really need the _Island Mayan _to do this really for it has one of the largest Fold Drives in the Fleet currently," Marcus replied to the Commander with a wave at his surroundings. Both men flinched as a nearby shipexploded from a strafing run by a trio of Heavy Soldier Type Vajra, which was soon engaged by several of the fleet's new VF-22 Wasp Lightweight Variable Fighters. Marcus watched the passing fighters with a small smile on his lips, for he had been quite surprised at the tiny fighters and how well they are performing against the Vajra. Though as a pair of the fighters exploded from return fire from the Vajra, Marcus knew that it didn't stop the Vajra from destroying them regardless. Still the three Heavy Soldiers were killed by a combined barrage of beam machine gun fire and missiles from the remaining Wasps. Their job done they quickly moved away, heading towards a group of nearby smaller Mobile Soldiers for another fight. With a shake of his head Marcus turned his attention away from the new fighters and back to the displayed holographic window of Commander Romero.

"Damn it! That was the _Rigel_! We cannot afford to lose any other ships," the older ship commander snarled out in some anger before he turned slightly to bellow orders to his own crew. Marcus sighed at this for the _Rigel _happened to be a _Northern Cross _Class Artillery Cruiser, which sported a Heavy Super Dimensional Cannon built into its Auxiliary Hull, which combined with several turrets of Heavy Particle Beam Cannons gave the design quite a long-range punch. The _Rigel _had been using its main gun to punch holes in the Vajra Swarm allowing some breathing room for the remaining NUNS forces fighting for their lives.

"Alright, do it, but please make it quick we are not going to last much longer," Commander Romero replied a few moments later, turning back to his own communications window after passing numerous orders to the other remaining ships of the rapidly shrinking NUNS Garrison Fleet.

"Understood we shall be starting in a few moments Commander just hold on a bit more," Marcus replied, making the other man nodded, and with a wave of his hand the communication link was closed. Marcus then turned to look at another smaller holographic window showing the readings on the Fold Drive of the _Island Mayan. _Seeing that everything was ready and turned his attention to his own crew.

"Alright. Let's do this starting powering up the Fold Drive," he ordered the handful of men and women with him on the command bridge of the _Island Mayan_. They all replied positively and relayed his orders to the rest of the ship. Then within a few minutes, a gentle hum could be felt throughout the large City-Ship as the Fold Drive started to power up. Gritting his teeth Marcus really hoped this worked or they were all screwed.

"Captain! The Vajra are retreating from battle! We are getting Fold reading across the battlefield," a voice called out from the colony ship's sensor station, making Marcus turn to look down at the station in some surprise before he looked up at the forward screens. Sure, enough, every single remaining Vajra were disappearing in their own unique pink fold spheres making his jaw drop in some surprise before shaking his head with a short laugh. He then turned to the bridge's engineering station.

"Alright now that they are gone stop the power-up of the Fold Drive," he ordered, for now, they were not fighting for their lives; they didn't need his plan anymore. Granted, the Vajra could return, but he had a hunch that they won't for something must have happened elsewhere that saw them retreat. At the nod of the engineering officer Marcus turned towards the communication station.

"When engineering is doing that, I want you to broadcast a general SOS on the Fold Comm since I am sure the Fold Jamming has disappeared with the Vajra's Fortresses. For we are going to need some help to recover from this," Marcus mentioned with a sigh as he looked back up at the holographic screens eying the split _Megaroad-07_.

'_God. I hope you managed to make it to the shelter Komilia with the kids or your Father will kill me if your mother doesn't get to me first,_' he thought with an inner chuckle mentioning his wife Komilia Maria Rush the older daughter of the legendary Admiral Maximilian Jenius, _'Though I would have most likely killed myself before that.' _

Suddenly he noticed the increasing panicked mutterings from the engineering station and the now audible hum getting ever louder instead of starting to decrease as the Fold Drive started to be shut off. He frowned at this before leaning forward slightly and looking down at the engineering station in some concern.

"What is going on? Why haven't you shut down the Fold Drive yet?" he called down to the engineering station and was surprised by the now cursing officer looking back up at him with a fearful face.

"Sir, we can't! The charge is increasing, and we cannot stop it!" the man mentioned making a chill pass down the back of Marcus. Yes. They had planned for this and did all the calculations, but who knows where they would end up.

"Sir! The _Macross Vanguard _is hailing us!" the officer at Communications reported making Marcus look over that station knowing why Romero was calling him. However, he was more worried about something else currently, along with the issue with the Fold Drive.

"Did you manage to fire off an SOS?" he asked the woman who nodded her head at him making him sigh in some relief.

"Good. Well, let's hope our planning and the calculations are correct, or this is going to be a one-way trip to hell," he mentioned with a sigh as the hum was literally screaming, and the ship was shaking. Then everything went white as the Fold Drive finally released its charge spreading out through the now recovering fleet. The globe of white light expanding out from the _Island Mayan _covering the entire fleet before suddenly with a flash the world disappeared, leaving behind some limited battle debris and empty space where there was once a fleet of hundreds of ships. Nothing was left to tell the tale of what happened here, and the _Megaroad-07 _would like the _Megaroad-01 _years before becoming a legend and a mystery. Though unlike the _Megaroad-01 _the remaining population of the _Megaroad-07 _will be seen again by the galaxy at large but not for a few more years. Till then it remains a mystery.

**-o-End-o-**

**Post Chapter Notes**

Well, this is the opening chapter of my second Macross/nBSG Crossover Story, **Journey Along The Stars**, which will focus more on the canon Rag Tag Fleet we see in the Battlestar Galactica series. Like my earlier Lucky Miracle story, the Macross Colony Fleet I have chosen to represent Macross in this story is the _Megaroad-07 _and the Seventh Long Distance Colonization Fleetthough this time more of the fleet survive than just a handful of surviving people from the _Megaroad-07 _along with a single Factory Ship. We shall learn more about the fleet and what had survived in the next chapter. Though it is not much. Far less then what the Colonials have in their own fleet.

Anyways. I am sure you all have some questions about a few things. Therefore, I shall answer a few of them. First off, this chapter takes place right alongside the Final Battle of the Frontier Series over the Vajra Homeworld during the scene where Grace O'Conner and the other leaders of the _Macross Galaxy _take over the Vajra. We could see a few brief scenes of a few locations getting attacked by fleets of Vajra. I figured those locations were not the only places attacked by the _Galaxy_-Controlled Vajra, which saw my fan-created _Megaroad-07 _being one of the attacked sites. In response to this one of the remaining senior officers of the fleet, Marcus Rush, who was the dead husband of Komilia mentioned in Lucky Miracle comes up with a crazy-ass plan to get the fleet plus the half-destroyed _Megaroad-07 _out of the battle. Basically, they are going to purposely overload their Fold Drives, which would unleash a giant fold bubble to allow the entire fleet to escape. This plan goes side-ways after the Vajra retreat due to our loveable Princess Alto Saotome killing Grace in the final shot of the war resulting in the plan going off anyways.

Next up, I am sure you notice a few minor things like the so-called _Atoll _Class Colony Ship that is the centerpiece of the chapter. This is the same type of ship as the _Island Jackpot _from Macross Delta, which looks like a smaller island-type city-ship. It will be the next colony ship for the survivors of the Megaroad-07 and maybe some people from the Colonial Fleet. Then you may notice the _Macross Vanguard, _which is the same class as the _Macross Elysion _also from Delta. I am actually a big fan of the design. Therefore, I have added it to story to serve as a counterpoint to the _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_. It is not the same as the _Elysion _having a pair of modified ARMD-L Units from the _Macross Quarter _as its "arms" instead of the _Enterprise _Class ships that the _Elysion _sports. That means it doesn't have a main gun, but it still has the hefty amount of regular particle cannon turrets, which will be enough for taking on Cylons. Finally, we have the VF-20 Wasp fighter mentioned briefly in the chapter. This little fighter will be quite useful in the fight against the Cylons. It is basically heavily based on the VF-X-7 Ghost from the Advanced Valkyrie Project, just with some slight modifications.

Okay. Further questions will be answered either in the coming chapters, like what is going on with Komilia, and what is going on with the Colonials or be explained in other ways like background files. One such file will be posted alongside this chapter at Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity, which covers a general overview of the Wasp. It was initially going to be this chapter's preface, but it got a bit longer then I wanted it to be therefore has become a background codex file.

Anyhow. I have rambled long enough. I hope you enjoy this little prelude, and I shall see you all in the next chapter. Ciao!


	2. Chapter One: Respite & Reflection

**Chapter One: Respite & Reflection **

_The Battle of the Resurrection Ship is the first time during the Second Cylon War that would see the Colonial Fleet of the fallen Twelve Colonies of Kobol, represented by the Battlestars _Galactica _and _Pegasus_ along with their fighter complements, fighting on a level battlefield without any tricks or surprises by the Cylon Empire. The two Colonial Battlestars efficiently managing to fight against twice their number in Cylon _Hel _Class Basestars while also managing to launch attacks against the Cylon Resurrection Ship and its accompanying support ships including an old _Specter _Class Basestar of the First Cylon War which had been converted into a dedicated support tender for the modern _Hel _Class Basestars. The resulting battle saw the destruction of two _Hel _Class Basestars, a third heavily damaged, the converted _Specter _Class Basestar destroyed, the Resurrection Ship destroyed, and several support ships including the Cylon's entire Tylium stockpile in the form of four heavy tankers destroyed. The final _Hel _Class Basestar retreated with the remaining support ships leaving the victorious Colonial Battlestars with some moderate armor damage and a few deep hits along with the destruction of nineteen Vipers. _

_The aftermath of the battle left the combined Colonial Refugee Fleet with a much-needed breather of fresh air. This allowed them to finish a few projects to make living in the fleet easier for the civilians, rounding up the remaining Cylon Spies in the fleet, complete training on replacement Colonial Fleet personnel and pilots, gathering needed resources to construct supplies required to keep the fleet running, finish repairs on several of the civilian vessels, and completing several significant tasks that had been delayed due to Cylon Attack or some other needed job like emergency repairs. One of these mentioned tasks would be the general integration of the _Galactica _and the _Pegasus _crews, for neither crew was used to operating with another Battlestar. All of which allowed the Refugee Fleet to gather its breath and to smooth out operations along with the entire fleet. _

_Meanwhile, the Cylon Empire was left shocked and surprised at the brutal attack on their Resurrection Ship along with the support ships. This was a significant setback for the Empire, for, with the destruction of the Resurrection Ship and its support ships, it couldn't maintain its pursuit of the Colonials. Especially with many of the human-form Cylons afraid of dying permanently. The leader of the Cylon Forces chasing the Colonial Refugee Fleet, Primus John was asked to step down from command by the Imperious Leader and was temporally Boxed in punishment for letting a valuable Resurrection Ship be destroyed. It also for the first time since the First Cylon War that the Empire has tasted such bitter defeat. In answer to this defeat, the Imperious Leader installed Primus Sonja as the new commander of the Empire's Second Fleet and the forces chasing the Colonial Refugee Fleet. Even then, before any further pursuit of the Colonial Fleet could be started, a supply of tylium and supplies needed to be built up while one of the precious few remaining Resurrection Ships had to be recalled from the Empire's capital, the Colony. _

_However, before either side could start fighting once more, the Colonials were surprised to stumble onto numerous ancient battlefields and ruins in several systems. While the Cylon Empire was shocked to the core by reports of the Empire's Third Fleet about the existence of some sort of unknown space nation that sported advanced technology, which includes particle beam cannons, advanced ECM Jamming, an unknown FTL Drive, and an advanced Active Stealth System. It would be the start of a third party entering the Second Cylon War, one that would send shocks through both the Colonials and the Cylons. _

\- Taken from The Great Exodus: A Tale of the Second Cylon War, written by Lieutenant Colonel Louis Hoshi (retired), Published on March 10, 2064AD

**-o-o-o- **

**Aether Star System **  
**Hatari Sector **  
**275 Days After Fall of Twelve Colonies**  
**36 Days After Battle of the Resurrection Ship **  
**October 3, 2061 AD (Earth Reckoning) **

The gathered Colonial Refugee Fleet was gathered around the massive pair of Battlestars as it silently held a position in a thick asteroid field in a recently surveyed star system. The fleet had changed very little since their departure from the Helios Star System over nine months before with the only the addition of the mighty Battlestar _Pegasus _and its own tiny fleet of civilian ships to the overall more extensive fleet being the only significant change. The fleet sported seventy-six ships, including the Battlestars _Galactica _and _Pegasus _as well the military support ship _Swordfish _while the civilian ships ranged from a pair of tiny _Flea _Class Lightweight Transports all the way up to the massive _Star Cloud_, a newly constructed _Cloud _Series Luxury Liner, that sported a couple of large pressurized domes on either side of its main hull. It had been recovered pretty much intact from the builder's fitting out yard by the Battlestar _Pegasus _during its guerilla war against the Cylon force occupying the Colonies. The large liner was used by the crew of the _Pegasus _to house the few hundred or so civilians they had managed to recover from drifting wrecks during the ongoing guerilla war. Currently, the large fleet was using the time given to them by the Cylons, not pursuing them to gather needed resources from the giant asteroid field while also finishing repairs required on a few of the overworked civilian ships. Along with seeing about getting the older _Galactica _back to full operation. The planned resourcing operation and the repairs were projected to take around a month to complete.

Watching all this activity around the fleet is newly promoted Admiral William Adama from the small porthole built into one wall of his newly appointed Flag Quarters. This small porthole is one of the few windows looking to the outside of the ship in the entire ship. He watched as several space-suited figures and a single _Mule _Fleet Shuttle hovered over the ship's starboard flight pod. One of the major parts of the operation to restore the _Galactica _back to full service was reactivating this flight pod. He couldn't see it from the porthole, but the _Kodiak _Class Support Tender _Swordfish _was docked along the bottom of the flight pod with another pair of _Mule _Shuttles. He had been quite glad to find that one of the ships of the small _Pegasus _led civilian fleet was a military support ship like the _Swordfish_. The _Kodiak _while not designed to service and repair the large Battlestars still sported the needed equipment to help in getting the Old Girl back into full fighting shape when teamed up with the ship's own engineers along with a team of civilian engineers that had been onboard the _Pegasus _starting its own refit when the Cylon Attack began.

As he watched, he reflected on a few events that happened over the past couple of months that would lead to their current respite from Cylon aggression. First there was President Laura Roslin being cured of her cancer using some blood of an unborn human/Cylon hybrid baby. This saw the President's plan on faking the death of the child after she was born and placing her up adoption to protect her in a way be dropped. He frowned at this thought, for he had been quite upset when the President had confided in him what she had planned. Still though with that plan thrown out the Cylon Human-Form Eight that had pretty much defected to the Colonials due to her falling in love with a human Raptor pilot had her baby a few weeks later. This saw the Adama moving the woman, her baby, and her lover, Lieutenant Karl Agathon, to these Flag Quarters away from anyone wanting to harm them. From there the Eight, now named Sharon Agathon, started a thorough debriefing by Adama and a picked team of officers which for the first time gave the Colonials a dedicated look at the new so-called Cylon Empire. The Eight also managed to describe the other Cylon Human Form Lines enough to get a general picture of each Cylon Line, allowing the Colonials to mount a search through the fleet to find further Cylon spies or saboteurs. This debriefing would also reveal one significant tidbit of information that shocked everyone who had been listening. There was another Battlestar out there and even a second refugee fleet under the control of Gerald Cain, an old legend from the First Cylon War, who was confusing the Cylons deeply with his random change in direction which like the fleet chasing the _Galactica _and its fleet would have them hold back to try to find out what he is planning.

Soon after the debriefing, the recently revealed second Battlestar, the _Pegasus_, and its gathered small fleet of ships arrived at much fanfare from the Fleet. However, soon that general excitement waned as Admiral Helena Cain, commander of the _Pegasus _revealed a few things to Adama and the President on what she had done over the past few months. While Adama had been quite interested in hearing about the woman's one-ship guerilla war against the Cylons back at the Colonies. He was aghast at the methods she used, impressing civilian spacers, executing an officer when he refused to follow her orders, and several other notable incidents which left the larger Battlestar with only about just shy of seventy percent of its crew. The only thing she did right was to rescue numerous stranded civilians trapped in drifting shipwrecks across the colonies and escorted several other civilian ships out of combat. Even then she impressed the civilians and spacers that had needed skills into her crew. That a few even all-out volunteered didn't diminish her pretty much taking a bunch of civilians and spacers at gunpoint to serve on her crew. The only reason she had gotten away with it mainly was that many of those civilians were angry and wanted some form of revenge against the Cylons.

Still having a second Battlestar around gave the Colonials a much-needed opportunity to see about giving them a needed reprieve from the pursuing Cylons. During the debriefing of Sharon Agathon, one major thing revealed was the existence of the Cylon's Resurrection Technology, which allowed Human-Form Cylons and Raiders to resurrect after their death at the nearest Resurrection Ship. The fleet chasing them sported a single ship of this type along with several needed support ships. With a second Battlestar and her complement of fighters, a battleplan was drawn out by both Adama and Cain to use their two ships to destroy that ship along with the Cylons' Fleet Train. The resulting battle did precisely as they intended destroying two Basestars in the process while also accomplishing their mission destroying the Resurrection Ship and the Cylon's support ships. The Cylons soon backed off giving the Colonials their reprieve from pursuit.

Soon after the battle Cain stepped down as Admiral and Commander of the _Pegasus _leaving the command of the larger battlestar to Commander Cade Ward who become the Admiral's XO after the death of her old XO during one of the earlier battles of her guerilla campaign while also promoting Adama to replace her as Admiral of the Fleet. During a talk between the two after Adama's promotion ceremony, Cain revealed the reason why she had abandoned her guerilla war to search out the _Galactica_ and its fleet. She had found out from a captured Cylon agent that her father was still alive and leading his own refugee fleet somewhere out in space. After recovering from the emotional breakdown from this revelation she asked herself what her father would do in her place. She then gathered the civilian ships she had hidden away across the former colonies and nearby space before jumping away from the Cyrannus Sector entirely and starting to search for either the _Galactica's _Fleet or her father's fleet.

However, while the Fleet started to see about widening the gap between them and the Cylons, they began to find numerous ancient battlefields with numerous old shipwrecks and debris while several planets were ravaged by some unknown weapon. A couple of planets even being totally broken apart into several pieces. This scared many in the Fleet mainly when they recovered a pretty much intact small craft from one of the battlefields. This large, but viper-looking craft surprised many in the Fleet with examples of its hull armor standing up against 30mm KEW Fire from a Viper and the craft's primary weapon being some sort directed energy weapon. The result of this observation would scare many across the fleet, while others asked if this was the work of the Thirteenth Tribe. It would be thanks to these ancient battlefields that would see the Fleet stopping in this system for a needed rest and refit period.

A sudden beeping from the large desk that was shoved into one corner of the large main room of the lavish quarters drew the Admiral from his reflecting of the past few months. Blinking, the Admiral turned away from the porthole and his thoughts, seeing that the beeping was from the corded handset built into one side of the desk. With a sigh, the Admiral stepped over to the desk and picked up the handset.

"This is the Admiral," he said into the receiver of the handset.

"Admiral, this is Captain Gaeta. Sir, you want to be notified when the last of the officers for the officer's briefing were aboard. Commander Wardjust landed, and he is the last of the officers you requested for the briefing," came the voice of Captain Felix Gaeta, the ship's operation officer, and his current aide-de-camp. One of the first acts upon being promoted to Admiral was to promote a few of his most trusted officers which included Gaeta. Blinking, Adama looked over at the ancient clock that sat at one wall of the office area of his quarters surprised to find that it was later than he thought.

"Yes. Thank you, Mister Gaeta. Please let Major Kelly know of this and that he is to take command of the CIC before you head down to the briefing yourself," he ordered the much younger man.

"Aye sir," the Captain replied before with a click the line disconnected, making the Admiral nod at this setting the handset back into its cradle before he turned to his desk and grabbed several stacked folders that laid there. He then made way for the main hatch of the room; however, as he headed for the hatch, he passed a pair of paintings that took up much of the main wall of the room. The first is a lovely painting of the _Galactica _during Operation Raptor Talon, which had sat on the wall of these quarters ever since the final days of the First Cylon War. Though it recently received a companion in the form of a new painting done by a civilian painter that had arrived onboard one of the civilian ships that accompanied the _Pegasus_. It showed the entire Colonial Refugee Fleet orbiting around a large Gas Giant they had come across a couple systems back. The painting is very detailed, with every single ship of the fleet lovely painted to the tiniest detail. It was really an excellent piece, and the Admiral had loved it when the painter had presented it to him a week before when they first entered this new star system. He smiled at the painting, for it represented that while they were running from the Cylons, life continued in some form for the civilians. With a brief smile the elderly Admiral stepped away from the paintings and exited his quarters heading towards the afternoon's officer meeting.

**-o-o-o- **

**Main Briefing Room **  
**Battlestar **_**Galactica**_

"Admiral on deck!"

Someone called out as Admiral Adama entered the main briefing room a few minutes later to find several of his officers that were gathered in the room snap to attention at his arrival. He nodded at this before setting the folders down at the head of the table the dominated the center of the room. This room had stood pretty much barren since the opening battle of the Second Cylon War. It had briefly been used during those hours before the Cylon attack as a press room where members of the press where briefed on the project to make the _Galactica _into a ship museum and had been where Adama had met with his remaining son for the first time since their estrangement after the death of his other son, Zac. Now with Adama elevated to Admiral, he ordered it cleaned up and returned to its original role as the main briefing room for gathered officers of a Battlestar Group or Fleet.

"At ease and take a seat, we have a lot to go over today," he mentioned with a wave of his hand to the table. The gathered officers stood at ease and quickly took seats around the table while the Admiral took the position at the head of the table as his rank dictated. He looked around, looking over the officers putting faces to names since the familiar faces from the _Galactica _were joined by new faces from both the _Pegasus _and _Swordfish _along with a few former retired officers that had been along with the civilian population before being recalled to service.

The familiar faces of the _Galactica _where all gathered nearest to the end of the table and the Admiral. First, there is Colonel Saul Tigh, currently the overall Commander of the _Galactica _though the other man generally remained Adama's XO as he hadn't officially given up the Command of the _Galactica _just yet, though that may change in the coming days. Then there was the youthful face of Captain Felix Gaeta, an officer who had risen from being a fresh-faced Junior Lieutenant on his first shipboard assignment before the start of the war all the way to becoming the ship's jaded Operations Officer. Sitting next to the youthful Captain is the slightly older Captain Karl Agathon, callsign Helo, who had once been a member of the ship's sole assigned Raptor Squadron before the Cylon Attack. He was now assistant to Captain Gaeta, filling more duties as the main Operations Officer while Gaeta became taking on more responsibilities due to him becoming the Admiral's go-to Aide since his promotion. Then there Adama's son Major Lee Adama, callsign Apollo, the ship's Commander Aerospace Group. Lee had changed very little since the arrival of the _Pegasus _besides a brief assignment as the main tactical officer and third officer onboard the _Pegasus_. He then returned to his role as the CAG of _Galactica_ though unknown to Lee, the Admiral was planning on giving Lee some more shipboard experience to eventually prepare him to maybe take on more duties as an officer onboard one of the Battlestars and finally perhaps command of one of them. The final of the familiar officers was someone not often seen in these meetings or briefings, Captain Davis Llewellyn the ship's sometimes cranky Chief Engineer. The gray-haired middle-aged woman had been the chief engineer of the _Galactica _for the last decade and a half. Therefore, knew pretty much everything about the old Battlestar, more so then Adama, who had served on the ship several times throughout his military career.

Then there were the new faces which include a few officers that Adama either had met before in his career or only knew of them from other sources. One such officer is Major Brian Carter, a member of the Colonial Fleet Research and Development Department before the Fall of the Colonies, due to being on board the _Pegasus _during the opening battle of the war he had been saved and helped in getting the ship back into action. Adama knew him from the early days of the decommissioning of the _Galactica _and knew that he has taken part in a few different projects across his career. Then there is Commander Cade Ward, the new Commander of the _Pegasus_, who once been the CAG for the Battlestar _Valkyrie _during the first year of Adama's command of the smaller _Mars _Class Battlestar. He had then had a slew of different assignments after entering further training at the Colonial Fleet's War College, briefly serving as Helena Cain's XO onboard the _Pegasus _before being assigned to command the newly commissioned _Mars _Class Battlestar _Dynamite_ right before the Cylon attack. The next officer is Lieutenant Colonel Charles Renner, commander of the _Swordfish_. Adama knew that Renner had been a longtime Colonial Fleet Reserve Officer hence only really served on or commanded support ships like the _Swordfish_. Finally, there is Colonel Samuel Kronus, an aging First Cylon War veteran that been along with the civilians rescued by the _Pegasus _after the Cylon Attack and been called back to service by Admiral Cain as commander of the recovered _Aquila _Class Through Deck Transport and Support Ship _Victoria_.

The _Aquila _Class was notable as being quite like the slightly smaller _Titan _Class Through Deck Container Freighter; however, what made the _Aquila _different was that they were created from the Flight Pods of decommissioned _Jupiter _and _Neptune _Class Battlestars. The Pod's Flight Deck is used to carry various types of containers while the hangar deck of the former Flight Pod was converted to other uses, including crew space. While a pair of attached engine nacelles gave the ship its FTL Drive and Sub-Light Engines. However, with the introduction of the smaller, more efficient _Titan _Class, along with several further freighters designs, the _Aquila _Class would be removed from service.

"Alright, I do believe the first thing we need to discuss today is the report on the recovered alien fighter. Major Carter if you please?" the Admiral finally said after a few minutes of looking over the gathered officers before nodding to the figure of Major Carter. The black-haired young engineer officer nodded in response before standing up from his seat, retrieving a small data drive in front of him, and walked towards the other end of the table where a large display screen stood displaying a rotating crest of the _Galactica_. The Major inserted the data drive into the laptop computer that is connected to the screen and retrieved a remote that had been placed next to the laptop.

"Thank you, Admiral. As you all aware, we recovered an alien fighter from one of the numerous battlefields in several star systems we passed by," the man mentioned as he came up alongside the display screen which at the command of his remote switched on to display images taken of the said fighter.

"We have thoroughly looked over every inch of the fighter and come to a few conclusions," he continued on as the screen went through the dozen or so images taken of various parts of the fighter, including its damaged hull, the cockpit, and a few other points on the fight.

"First of all, the cockpit section is quite large, which we believe is for a giant-sized alien to pilot the craft. Though upon inspecting the cockpit and its controls we were surprised to find we pretty much understood what many of them would be able to do. That is not even considering that all the displayed text on the controls are some variation of Ancient Kobolian Text," the engineer mentioned bringing up the several images taken of the cockpit on the screen with another click of the remote. The gathered officers could only stare in some surprise, they all had read the preliminary report on it, but still hearing it and seeing was quite something else.

"Interesting. If I remember right, some of our other ancient religious texts have mentioned several times of creatures called titans. I wonder if the pilots of these pilots are actually these titans or some form of them anyways," the Admiral mentioned thoughtfully, which made a couple of the officer blink in some surprise while Major Carter nodded at him.

"Yes. A few of my more religious team members had mentioned something similar, especially when we realized that the text in the cockpit is some sort of off-shoot of Ancient Kobolian," the Engineer replied before with a click of his remote brought another series of images which made him frown in some concern.

"That said. We have tested pieces of the fighter's hull, and we are quite surprised to find that while it is quite light it is very tough. More so than our own fighter hulls. We even did a test firing a dismounted MEC-A6 30mm KEW Cannon at a piece of the hull and we were surprised that the rounds simply bounced off the hull before finally after several barrages of fire from the cannon we managed to break through the hull," he reported with a shake of his head as a video played of the mentioned test making the officers start mumbling in some worry. He then clicked his remote again with a shake of his head, stopping the video and bringing up a few more images onto the screen. This time of the fighter's primary weapon which looked like some sort of triple-barreled cannon of sort.

"Next, we took a long look at the primary weapon of the fighter, and we were quite surprised to find that it is not as we first thought a heavy kinetic cannon of some sort, but a direct energy weapon. This surprised the frak out of us for that is the last thing we were expecting," Carter said with a pained look on his face as the officer's stopped mumbling in worry and outright looked at him in some shock. One of them Commander Ward leaned forward and stare directly at the engineer with a frown on his face.

"Major, I hate to ask you this but are you sure that you are correct in that it is a directed energy weapon?" the man asked making the Major smile slightly at the question before clicking on his remote once more showing several images of the weapon including a few images of the weapon removed from the fighter itself. One such image had zoomed on looked to be some sort of battery or energizer. Another image showed the weapon's mount inside the nose of the alien fighter. Nothing in either photo showed anything like an ammo magazine. Finally, a short video started showing the weapon mounted onto a frame like the one that held the KEW Cannon in the earlier video. A moment later it fired at some sort of placed target outside of the camera's view. Indeed, some sort of beam emerged from one of the barrels of the weapon.

"We did numerous tests on the weapon. We are quite sure with our results," he mentioned with a mirthless chuckle before continuing on, "That said. It appears to be a sort of particle beam cannon that instead of firing like a three-barrel version of our own 52mm Rapid-Fire KEW Cannon, it instead fires one barrel at a time with a couple of seconds in between each shot."

Major Carter then looked around at the other officers to seem them all pretty much shocked speechless over this revelation. All but the Admiral who had read his full report a few days beforehand to prepare for this meeting. The Major chuckled at this before turning back to the screen, which now returned to the image of the alien fighter's main cannon on a testing rack.

"I like to point out that the Fleet's Advanced R&D Section Black-Three was in the process of developing a similar weapon, but they were around a decade away from a viable design. The prototypes they did manage to develop were heavy and cumbersome, nothing like this design at all. That is the only reason we were able to discover how to fire this thing and how it worked so easily," he said waving at the image with a shake of his head and a sigh before with another click of his remote the screen displayed a few points on the fighter's hull along with an image taken of looked to be some sort of missile. Another showed the same missile disassembled into several pieces.

"Finally, we have the auxiliary weapon of the fighter, which is three paired missile launchers, quite like our own Viper missile bays. The missiles themselves are quite interesting for instead of sporting some sort of explosive warhead at the front of the missile they are instead large kinetic penetrators which are design to pierce through an enemy's hull before the explosive in the mid-part of the missile explodes taking out the enemy," he said pointing to several parts of the disassembled missile.

"And that concludes my report," the engineer said with a final click of his remote, which returned the display back to the rotating image of the Crest of the _Galactica_. The Admiral nodded at this before looking over at the still shocked officers before looking up at the Major.

"Before we get to the next item on the list, you had mentioned at the end of your report of something that you believed may be able to take on these alien fighters if we ever encounter them. Can you further explain that?" the Admiral ordered, making the Major facepalm slightly and mumbled something before sighing, looking up at the Admiral. He then went over to the computer connected to the display screen and retrieved the data-drive connected there before replacing it another data-drive he fished out of a pocket of his uniform. A moment later the display beeped a few times, and several images appeared all showing schematics of a large fighter craft.

"Very well, sir. As you know I was involved in numerous different projects that Fleet R&D had been working on over the past few years. One such project had been Project Scorpion, which was an old project from the final days of the First Cylon War. It was to be a heavy fighter to complement the Viper, but with the signing of the Armistice the project was shelved," he started off bringing up a gray and white image of a strange-looking fighter that looked more squarish then a Viper.

"It was brought back a few years ago for some reason or another where it would be redesigned vastly to serve not only as the original heavy fighter but as a needed bomber craft," the Major continued on now showing a second image that showed some schematics of another fighter this one looked to be a slightly enlarged version of a Viper with marginally longer wings.

"This version of the Scorpion looked more like a Viper, and due to this is shared sixty percent of parts with the Viper Mark VII. For weapons, it sported a nose-mounted MEC-C5 52mm KEW Cannon and a belly-mounted bay that could be configured to carry numerous missiles or bombs even a pair of Thunderbolt Nuclear Missiles if required. The engines were also tuned heavily, allowing the Scorpion to sport eighty percent of the speed and maneuverability of a Viper," the engineer explained with a nod to the displayed schematics. The officers who also wore the wings of a Viper pilot looked quite impressed with the design. Major Adama had a small grin on his face as he eyed the images while Commander Ward silently whistled in appreciation.

"What I suggested in my report Admiral was to take the MEC-C5 Cannon from the Scorpion Design and maybe finding a way to mount it onto our current Vipers. Since my team did manage to develop a more cost-efficient variant of the Mark VII at the request of Admiral Cain, I figured we could do it. We basically redesigned the vertical stabilizer wing a bit to allow a single KEW-C5 Cannon to be mounted in the place of the single MEC-A9 Cannon. Though the amount of ammo would be quite light compared to the smaller MEC-A9 Cannon. Like mentioned, the stabilizer would have to be redesigned slightly, but I think it would doable," he continued on, showing a rough sketch of what he was talking about. However, he sighed and leaned back from the laptop to look at the Admiral.

"However, Admiral, I am not convinced such a change would be viable, for we don't have a way to build a MEC-C5 Cannon with us currently. We do have the dies and such to allow us to build the smaller MEC-C3 52mm Rapid-Fire Cannon, but those were meant to be mounted onto the hardpoints of a Raptor and not on a Viper. When I wrote that part of the report, I was not aware of this and was only informed afterward," he mentioned with a shake of his head. The Admiral nodded at this before sighing sadly.

"Very well, Major. Still please keep looking into it," the Admiral directed, making the Major nod in understanding. Then with a salute to the Admiral, he retrieved his data-drive from the computer and sat back at his place. A moment later the Admiral looked down at some notes he had brought with him before turning to look at Commander Ward.

"Commander, I do believe you are up next for your own proposal," he directed with a nod to the front of the table. The other man sighed and combed his hand through his brown hair mixed with some gray before getting up to walk over to the front of the table.

"Admiral, if I remembered right a few months ago Captain Kara Thrace put forward a proposal to launch a mission that would head back to the Colonies in effort to rescue the resistance group that had helped her get back to the Fleet after retrieving the Arrow of Apollo," he said looking around at the gathered officers. The _Galactica _officers all blinked in some surprise at this while the Admiral narrowed his eyes some.

"Correct Commander. I denied the proposal because while it was a noble thing, we would have civilians wondering why we didn't try to find other survivors on other colonies, which would be a larger operation then we could afford to mount. Not to mention it wasn't worth it to try to rescue a few dozen survivors when we only had a handful of remaining Raptors," the Admiral replied making the Commander nod in agreement with him.

"Yes, sir, you did the right thing. I am not saying anything about that, but what I propose is quite like that earlier proposal. Though instead of using a handful of Raptors and Fleet Shuttles for the mission we instead use a full-on Battlestar along with a few of our civilian ships," he mentioned making more than one of the gathered officers stare at him in sheer shock at his statement. The Admiral meanwhile looked at him with a frown before waving him to continue.

"We now have two Battlestars in the Fleet, and with the Cylons at the moment not pursuing us we can afford to see about heading back to the colonies to find not only survivors but needed supplies and parts to keep the Fleet going for many more years ahead," he continued on making a few officers nod in some understanding for it make sense. Major Carter looked quite excited and had leaned over to mumble something to Colonel Renner. The Admiral, though just looked on with a thoughtful look on his own face. The Commander looked around at the other officers and nodded before turning to Display Screen behind him, inserting his own data-drive into the computer and bringing up his own series of images. All of which showed a basic FTL Plot Map and several other minor images. The Plot Map had their current location and the location of the colonies mark, then in between the two marked areas a series of smaller marks where displayed.

"Like Captain Thrace's proposal, this one would require the FTL Navigation Computer captured from a Cylon Heavy Raider to work. However this proposal wouldn't require the back-to-back FTL Jumps and would instead use the Cylon FTL Computer to plot a series of a dozen or so Maximum Range Jumps back to the Colonies," the Commander said nodding at the FTL Plot Map before bringing up a couple of the images.

"Now according to the debriefing of the defected Number Eight Cylon, Sharon Agathon we know that the Cylons have around a dozen to two dozen Basestars in the Helios System itself with a further several Basestars searching in nearby star systems for stranded civilian ships that may have jumped from the Colonies in the panic of the initial attack. However, that was around a few months ago. Therefore, they may have moved on, especially with the destruction of one of their Resurrection Ships," Commander Ward mentioned bringing up Agathon's debriefing on the display screen.

"Therefore, if the Helios System is clear of any Cylon Presence, then the Rescue Force moves in first at Caprica before moving onto the other colonies. While this is going on, the Rescue Force will have several Raptors on DRADIS Overwatch to make sure the Cylons don't return while the mission is going on. If the Cylons do return, then the plan is to jump out before further Cylon Forces arrive. Even if there are further detected survivors, we can't afford to lose the Battlestar assigned to this mission, so it has to jump out no questions asked," the Commander said, bringing up several stills showing the operation plan of the Rescue Operation. A moment later the Commander sighed and shook his head before continuing.

"However, this operation will need the vast majority of the Cylon Fleet to have left the Colonies, hence if there remains a major Cylon presence in Helios then the plan will call for the Battlestar assigned to this mission to move onto the secondary objectives of the mission which is to clear out the rest of the supplies at Ragnar Anchorage. Since when the _Pegasus _was doing her one-ship guerilla war against the Cylons, we left several Civilian ships at Ragnar, and they reported there is still a significant amount of supplies in other warehouses of the Station. There will also be Omega Station in the Orion System seven lightyears from the Colonies which will a vast amount of supplies and tylium stored onboard along with some needed factory lines that can be disassembled to be transported back to the fleet," the Commander continued on bringing up several images, of Ragnar Anchorage along with a few of the mentioned other warehouses on the station and of Omega Station.

"That is if the Cylons still have a heavy presence in the Colonies that would require us not even trying to get anywhere in the Colonies. Another option would use a version of Captain Thrace's plan just from a shorter range that would allow a team to get into Caprica Airspace with an in-atmosphere FTL Jump. We also can a similar mission to Aquaria and Leone which we know still have survivors due to wireless intercepts from Raptor Fly-Bys from the _Pegasus _during her Guerilla War," the Commander finished things off bringing up reports on the mentioned wireless intercepts and a planned FTL Plot for the Caprica Rescue Mission. The gathered officers looked quite impressed with the plan while the Admiral just seemed a bit thoughtful at the idea of going back to the colonies. However, before anything further happened a handset mounted on the wall next to the display screen started to trill for attention making the gathered officers look over at it in some confusion. The Admiral frowned and looked over at Colonel Tigh next to him, who got up from his seat to angrily stride over to the handset.

"Colonel Tigh here," the man angrily barked into the receiver of the handset. He briefly listened and after a few moments, nodded.

"Understood. I shall pass that along to the Admiral. I should be at least up there in a few minutes," the Colonel mentioned before racking the handset and turning to look at the Admiral.

"Sir. That was Major Kelly apparently one of the Raptors we sent on the surveying mission has returned and reported that something is happening in the star system they are surveying," he reported making the Admiral lookup in some confusion before shrugging and looking over at the gathered officers.

"We shall continue this meeting at a later date gentleman, so you are all dismissed," he said, getting up from the table before stopping Major Carter from leaving with a raised hand.

"I have a feeling Major that you are going to be needed, so please follow me back to CIC," he directed as he gathered the reports.

"Yes sir," the Major replied following in behind the Admiral as he walked towards the briefing room's main hatch with Colonel Tigh joining him. Outside of the hatch, the Admiral handed off the reports to the young man standing outside of the briefing room along with a few others.

"Mister Jaffee, please take these back to my quarters if you please," he ordered his yeoman, Stewart Jaffee, who had been with him since he started to command the _Galactica_. The young yeoman simply nodded and with a salute started to move off towards the Admiral's quarters. The three officers then exchanging brief farewells with the other officers before beginning to head off towards the CIC. All three wondered what had happened now, and how it would affect the fleet in the days ahead. Of which unknown to these three men something wonderful for the Colonial Fleet was about to happen.

**-o-End-o-**

**Post Chapter Notes**

God! That took forever to write! I think I had to rewrite this thing a couple of times before I was comfortable with it. Then it becomes one of the longest of the chapters so written in both **Journey **and **Meeting**. So, I am entirely done with it, and its now time to move onto the fun part of the story. The meeting between the Colonials and the people of the Megaraod-07 Colony Fleet.

Still. I do apologize for the lengthy infodump that took up most of this chapter. First, I needed to get across on what had been going on between the Battle of the Resurrection Ship and now, which took up the first half of the chapter. Secondly, the briefing needed to be done to show a few things critical to the story ahead. The most significant being that the Colonials needed to get the idea of aliens in their heads before the first meetings with the _Megaroad-07 _people.

One last thing. You may notice a bit of discrepancy from the official timeline of the series. This is mainly because I really don't agree with the timeline of the second half of the Second Season. It just jumped around a lot and didn't really make any sort of sense. The First Season had a gradual procession of time going by while the second half after the arrival of the _Pegasus _just starts doing these large time-skips that really kind of make no sense. Therefore, I have changed things to make better sense in my mind.

Oh. Cain here still kind of canon Cain but she didn't order the civilians killed when they refused to be impressed into her crew. One, they actually went along with the impression mainly due to their anger at the Cylon attack and two, Cain wasn't that far gone yet therefore after impressing the needed crew from the civilians she ended up hiding the civilian ships in a few places away from the Cylons while she did her guerilla war against the Cylons. Still, she feels guilty about what she had done therefore had stepped down, making way for Adama to become Admiral of the Fleet.

Anyways. I really don't want to make these notes any longer than they need to be. Hence, I am going to cut it off here even I am sure you all still have plenty of questions. So, Chapter One of **Journey **is finished, and I shall get to work Chapter Two soon. Till then. Ciao!


	3. Chapter Two: Arrival

**Chapter Two: Arrival **

_The phenomena known as Fold Stasis, or sometimes Fold Prison or Fold Freeze, is when during a Fold Jump, the ship or ships in the fold will be locked in Fold Space till suddenly it ends, and everything in Fold Space reenters normal space. This could be around several days after the start of the jump to many years later, it all depends on several factors. Everything onboard the ship or ships undergoing a Fold Stasis is frozen in time with no evidence of the passage of time. This is a general reversal of early Fold Travel, which had Fold Travel taking less time than time in normal time. For example, a ship going in between Earth and Eden will take about a couple hours in Fold, but when exiting Fold Space, it would have been a couple days later in regular time. This became even worse when humanity first started encountering Fold Faults, which made traveling from one end of the galaxy to the other quite hard. It often took months to years to travel from say Earth to the Galactic Core while in Fold Space it only took anywhere from hours to days for traveling. Therefore, Fold Stasis would reverse this due to several issues, like some sort of damage to Fold Space, or the Fold Drive itself. _

_This was first discovered by the New United Nations Government in late 2055AD when an old SC-30 Starhawk shuttle emerged from Fold Space in the vicinity of the Seventh Long Range Colonization Fleet that was exploring the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy. After recovering the shuttle, the crew of the Seventh's Flagship the _Megaroad-07 _were surprised to find the unconscious pilot, one Senior Lieutenant Komilia Fallyna Jenius, much to their shock. Lieutenant Jenius was thought to be killed during a test of a small, lightweight Fold Drive in 2036 little under twenty years beforehand when the new Fold Drive started to enter an uncontrollable state before disappearing entirely from every scan. The data from the shuttle and its busted Fold Drive would lead Fold Space Theorists to coin the term of Fold Stasis. _

_Thanks to this data and the idea of Fold Stasis, numerous theories would become a reality, including the idea of the lost _Megaroad-01_ somehow managed to enter a Fold Stasis of their own. However, it was only theories, and so far, only around five further Fold Stasis events have been observed by the New United Nations Government, including those that were purposely tried to create by Fold Space Scientists. However, now of these further events where the length of the stasis holding Lieutenant Jenius mostly lasting anywhere from a few months to a few years. _

\- - Taken from Fold Phenomena: A Look into the Mystery of Fold Space, written by, Doctor Thomas Kearny, Circa June 15, 2058 AD

**-o-o-o-**

**Ithaca Star System  
****Hatari Sector  
****275 Days After Fall of Twelve Colonies**

The Ithaca Star System was like every star system surveyed by the Raptors and Fleet Shuttles of the Colonial Refugee Fleet sport numerous fields of debris from some ancient war that was long over. It was far more extensive than any other debris field surveyed before, with various smaller debris fields spread across the solar system. Spread out through a couple of the larger debris fields were a few most intact ships. With even one mostly intact ship that only had several large holes in its hull being the only damage seen. They still were in a few pieces but recognizable as spaceships of some sort. There was even once a habitable planet in the inner system of the star system which had been cleansed of life in that same ancient war. All of this was on the mind of one Lieutenant Margaret Edmondson as her Raptor scanned the lifeless planet from its orbit. A second Raptor was slightly behind her own craft scanning a smaller debris field that surrounded an alien ship that was the next most damaged ship of those found so far by the Raptor crews assigned to this survey.

"I wonder how it looked in its heyday," she said with a wistful look on her face as she stared down at the planet. Sitting behind her at his ECO Station, Junior Lieutenant Hamish McCall looked up from reading the scans taken of the planet.

"According to what limited data from our scans of the planet it most likely resembled a waterier version of Aquaria with numerous islands and small continents spread across a planet-wide ocean," he replied with a smile behind his helmet's faceplate. Lieutenant Edmondson hummed in thought at that as she kept staring down at the planet.

"Man, it has been a long while since I have been to a beach," she mentioned with a dreamy look on her face making her ECO laugh slightly before he too stared down at the planet through the forward viewport of the Raptor. It was pretty much a brown and grey wasteland with a few yellow looking clouds spread around the remaining atmosphere of the planet, making it looked far better than a few other planets they had found over the past few weeks. A couple was even in several pieces making a very thick asteroid field around the larger pieces.

"I wonder if this is what Scorpia would look like in about a hundred or so years," he mentioned with a thoughtful yet mournful look on his face before a beeping sound from his station dragged his attention to it.

"Well, Racetrack looks like our scans are pretty much done of the planet. Still wouldn't want to be caught on the planet but it is far better than that hothouse we found a few systems back," he mentioned calling the pilot by her callsign making her nod in some in agreement before turning her attention to the second Raptor and its own scans of the unknown ship. He had mentioned a planet they had found a few systems ago that was turned into a scorching lava-filled environment by something or another.

"So, Skulls, you think the engineers back at the fleet going to be interested in that wreck," Racetrack mentioned calling her ECO by his own callsign, making him snort in response at this statement.

"Oh. They are going to be salivating to get their hands on that piece of junk. After they pulled apart that alien fighter they recovered, I bet you ten cubits that they will send the _Swordfish _out here to tow it back to the fleet once we report back to the fleet," he replied back, making Racetrack snort in humor.

"No bet, Skulls. Still, I wonder what things we can discover in that wreck. The Viper pilots were quite upset over that rumor that their guns wouldn't work on the hull of that large fighter," she stated making Skulls nod in agreement at this remembering that rumor though he was pretty sure was true since one of the spare MEC-A6 Guns found on a Viper Mark-II had been taken by a team of engineers from the Port Flight Pod Armory of the _Galactica_. At least according to his few buddies on the deck crew anyways.

"Large fighter hell, that was a Gunship Racetrack," Skull said, making his pilot nod in some agreement with it for the overall size made it a tad larger than the Raptor they were currently piloting.

"True," she mentioned in reply, but before she could say anything else, their DRADIS and other pieces of equipment started to go haywire much to her shock. Skulls yelped in some surprised as his DRADIS screen started to fuzz and spark slightly.

"Ranger, Racetrack! Are you getting whatever this is!" she literally screamed into her wireless to the nearby second Raptor.

"Racetrack, Ranger. We are picking up something, but we cannot tell whatever it is," the voice of Ensign Talia Rogers, callsign Ranger, came through her wireless barely audible but still able to be heard much to Racetrack's relief.

"Okay. Can you jump out?" a much calmer Racetrack asked the other Raptor as she struggled to get her own Raptor under some sort of control.

"Affirmative Racetrack," came the response a few moments later, making Racetrack sigh in some relief.

"Then get out of here and let the fleet know what in the world is going on here," she ordered and wasn't surprised to hear a muffled curse from the other pilot. She mentally sighed for initially they were supposed to have one of the Heavy Fleet Shuttles, and another pair of Raptors on this survey mission but the Shuttle assigned had to be taken down for repairs while the other pair of Raptors were diverted to another survey mission that found an abundant source of unrefined Tylium ore.

"But Racetrack…" Ranger tried to say, but Racetrack didn't let her complete her protest.

"Do it, Ranger! This is an order," she barked out surprising herself that she kind of sounded almost like Captain Kara Thrace, a Viper Pilot with the callsign of Starbuck, who had quite a reputation throughout the Fleet.

"Understood. Jump Drive is spooling up now. Good luck Racetrack," came the reply a minute or so later. Then with a flash, the other Raptor disappeared, leaving Racetrack and her own Raptor the only live craft in the system.

"Ah Racetrack, from what I see through this fuzz ships are starting to appear somewhere to our port, or what I think are ships," Skulls suddenly mentioned from behind her from his station, making Racetrack nod in understanding and hum in some curiosity. After a moment she slewed her Raptor to the side, bringing whatever was happening to their view, and when she finally did so, she could only gasp in surprise. Skulls looked up at her gasp and could only stare in some shock at what they were seeing.

"Woah," is all he could say as a large white globe of light could be seen in front of them. A globe that was around a hundred kilometers in size. Inside this globe of light where what looks like shadows of numerous ships, and other smaller craft of some sort. A moment later, the sphere of light started to contract, leaving behind full-on ships in its wake, along with what looked like to them as wrecked and destroyed ships.

"Okay. I am going to put us into that debris field, Skulls, and when I do, I want you to shut everything you can down. All but the camera pod," Racetrack mentioned, turned slightly to look at the man.

"Yeah. That might be a good idea," he replied making Racetrack nod before turning her attention to her controls as with some effort managed to pilot her tiny Raptor into the nearby debris field and found a good place inside one of the holes of the almost intact wreck that laid in the center of the debris field. Then with that done, Skulls started to power down numerous systems and pieces of equipment, including the FTL Drive, the engines, the DRADIS, and countless other small systems. Till only the small camera pod mounted on of the Raptor's modular mounts on its underside was actively allowing them to capture everything going on with this fleet of ships as they appeared from the globe of light.

**-o-o-o-**

**System CA-1112  
****Demon Sector  
****September 10, 2061 AD **

With a groan, the figure of Captain Marcus Rush sat up from where he had been sprawled and after a few moments of taking stock of himself, started to look down at the darkened bridge that began to light up as systems rebooted. He sighed in some relief as the figures of his crew spread across the large command bridge started to move and groan as they too started to come also. With a grunt Marcus got up from the floor of the overbridge where he had been standing only moments beforehand when the Fold Drive did more than just merely overloading.

"Everyone alright," he called out down to the other officers.

"Yes sir," came a few replies as power started to return to bridge stations lighting up the bridge further before finally, the main displays snapped on. A few moments of static and some fuzz on the screens before they cleared showing their current surroundings.

"Navigation, do you know where we are yet?" Marcus asked out loud, inspecting the large forward displays with a frown, for it didn't look like the system he had chosen as their destination before all this went down.

"Negative Captain. Still gathering data from our sensors, but the good news is that the rest of the fleet was brought along for the ride. Including the _Megaroad-07 _or what is left of her anyways," came the reply of the navigation station making Marcus nod but before he could say anything else a beep sounded and a holographic window popped up next to him showing the face of the engineer he brought with him to the _Island Mayan_ to oversee the City Ship's Fold Drive.

"Sir, it looks we have a problem down here. The Fold Drive has disappeared entirely," the engineer reported making Marcus groan out load for while they had theorized that may happen when they started this crazy plan. It was another thing seeing it happen.

"Great. Alright, once communications are restored, do me a favor and poll the rest of the remaining ships to see if they still have their drives," he ordered the slightly younger man knowing that was another possibility they had considered.

"Understood, sir, I will get right on that," the engineer replied and with a salute signed off, making Marcus look back up at the display screens. As he did so he noticed some half-destroyed Valkyries and other pieces of debris start to float past the City Ship, making him flinch.

"Lieutenant Valerie," he called down to one of his officers who had operated the bridge's communication station.

"Sir," she said, looking up at him, wiping some blood from a cut on her cheek.

"Get a line to the _Anaheim _to see if they can start sending out some S&R Shuttles out to search for downed pilots and escape pods," he ordered her, making her nod and stepped fully over to her assigned station.

"I will get right on that Captain," she replied, making Marcus nod in some relief before blinking as a thought came to him, which made him turn back to the young communication officer.

"Oh, and when you are done with that Lieutenant. I am going to need a communication line with Commander Romero on the _Vanguard_," he ordered her, making her look back up at him in some surprise before she nodded at him making him sigh pretty sure he was going to get an earful from the Commander about his crazy plan.

"Navigation anything on our current position yet?" he asked, turning to the navigation station to see the young officer at that station look in some confusion at his screen.

"No, sir. We can't pin down exactly where we are currently due to some of the nearby stars not where they are supposed to be," the man mentioned making Marcus look at him some confusion at the man before he suddenly went cold as something came to him. For he knew that a general position check used by New United Nations Spacy ships checked a few of the nearby stars against numerous different starcharts they had on file from not only their own exploration but from things like recovered Protoculture data-drives and Zentradi ships. Therefore, if some of those stars were not where they are supposed to be, then either they really went further into unexplored space, then they should have, or something else happened. One of which he knew a person close to him had undergone a few years beforehand.

_'Oh. Komilia is so going to kill me!_' he thought with a grimace before looking down at the officer.

"Try advancing our local time in small increments till those stars line up like they should," he ordered that saw a few of the other officers on the bridge freeze in some surprise for they were experienced enough to know where he was going with that order. The navigation officer though only looked a bit confused before shrugging and following his orders. While he did that Marcus turned his attention to the small globe like hologram that was right below the main display of the command bridge where the paired operations officers sat. Though right now, they only had the one officer sitting there currently. As he did, he noticed numerous smaller contacts had been launched from the _Anaheim _as he ordered and where in the process of starting recovery operations. This saw him turn to Lieutenant Valerie, seeing her looking up at him.

"Sir, apparently something happened on the _Vanguard _right before the Fold Event, which heavily injured the Commander from some sort of fall. He is now in surgery, but according to the doctors they don't think he will make it," the woman said almost in a whisper making Marcus once more grimace for while he was not a fan of the Commander due to his bull-headed tendencies he was still the senior combat officer remaining in the Fleet. He was also the father of Alexander Romero, who had once been a close friend of Marcus who had been killed during the battle with the Uncultured Zentradi. Alex managed to pilot his VF-171 Nightmare Plus inside the Zentradi Flagship and then detonated the Reaction Weapons he had been carrying, destroying the ship and ending the battle. Therefore, he would be sad to see the father of his lost best friend join his son in death.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. Can I ask who the senior surviving officer on the _Vanguard _happens to be?" he asked her with a frown hoping that it isn't some sort of green lieutenant or something like that.

"It's Lieutenant Commander Vince Grant, sir," she reported making Marcus blink in some surprise at this, for if he remembered correctly, the Lieutenant Commander had initially been a Captain of one of the Fleet's _Uraga _Class Fleet Carriers but had retired to spend time with his family.

"I thought Grant was retired," he said in some confusion, making the Lieutenant smile slightly at his confused look.

"Apparently when the _Macross Vanguard _was completed Vince Grant was asked by Captain McCrea to return to service for a short time since he was the only officer we had who had once served onboard a _Macross _Class ship," she replied making Marcus sigh in some relief at this for it was good he had a veteran combat officer to aide him in the days ahead. Nodding in thanks to the lieutenant, Marcus turned his attention back to the Operations holo-globe and onto the single man operating the station.

"Operations. What's the Fleet status currently?" he asked that same officer who had been one of the few officers to freeze in surprise at his earlier orders to the sensor officer. That man shook his head to clear it at his question and turned to look at his station, silently getting a count before looking back up him.

"According to our sensors Captain, we currently only have seven _Northampton _Class Frigates relatively intact: _Walker, Satsuma, Akagi, Simms, Blackhawk, Revenge, _and the_ Savoie_. Then two further _Northampton _Class Frigates, the _Mahan_ and the _Nachi_, are damaged but can be repaired enough with our current resources on the _Anaheim_ to be brought fully back into service. Every other frigate has been destroyed during the battle or no way being able to be repaired with our current resources. As for our cruisers, only a single _Ontario _Class Cruiser is in serviceable condition, the _Respite Island_, every other cruiser in the fleet have been all-out destroyed or have been smashed enough that nothing can repair them right now. That includes all our artillery cruisers and remaining heavy cruisers. Finally, as you know, every single one of our carriers was destroyed during the battle," the officer reported in an almost strained voice, which made Marcus sigh and close his eyes. The other officers could stare at the man in some surprise at this statement. Only nine active frigates and a single active cruiser was barely five percent of their battle strength before the battle with the Vajra, and even then that was around seventy percent of their battle strength thanks to their earlier battle with a small fleet of Uncultured Zentradi a few months before the Vajra came calling. There was a reason they had built the _Macross Vanguard _and a small group of new _Northern Cross _Class Artillery Cruisers replacing the handful of older _Inferno _Class Artillery Ships they had in the fleet.

"What about our support ships? Outside of the _Megaroad-07_ anyways?" he managed to say a few moments later with a pained look on his face. The operations officer sighed at this before bringing up a display on the holo-globe.

"Yes, the _Megaroad-07 _was sliced in half by those bio-quantum beams from the Vajra Carriers, that said from what these readings are saying about forty percent of the civilians on the ship managed to make it to the shelters before the beam sliced through the hull. Don't know about the ship's crew sadly since if they didn't make to the civilian shelters or some other shielded part of the ship, they were pretty much killed from the depressurization of the hull. Though I would think if they were suited up, they may have survived. As for the Habitation Ships, only one appears to be intact is the _Baalkpan Bay_, while the _Bay of Storms _looks to be minimally damaged with only a couple holes in her hull. The others looked to be all-out destroyed either by fire from those large guns on the Heavy Soldiers or by fire from the Vajra Carriers. The other civilian ships, including most of our freighters and transports, were destroyed as well, including our remaining Factory Ship _Mason_. From what I see of the transports only the _Toolbox _and the _Wrench _managed to survive the battle intact. While only one of our mining ships, the _Greenleaf_ has survived along with one of the mineral refinery ships, the _Boron, _which is damaged. A couple further ships, mostly those converted from _Oberth _Class ships remain pretty much intact just with a few holes in their hole which can be fixed," the operations officer reported making more than one officer on the command bridge to break down at the news, including Lieutenant Valerie at her Communication Station, while the Captain could only sigh in some remorse.

He kind of expected something like that for the civilian ships gathered around the _Megaroad-07 _didn't have the armor or the barriers really to stand up in a running battle like the defense fleet did. It was those thin-skinned transports that carried much of the fleet's water supply, spare food, mineral resources, needed spare parts, and other such resources needed to keep a colony fleet running smoothly. The Habitation Ships, which didn't have dedicated civilian shelters due to their small size, still sported populations from five thousand people to around twenty thousand depending on a few things. Each of the Habitation Ships was different with ships like the damaged _Bay of Storms_ sporting a double-stacked small city in its enclosed space, while the _Baalkpan Bay _sported a pair of inverted decks each with a large piece of land able to grow food or raise animals. The loss of the Factory Ship was going to be a headache for while his ship the _Anaheim _had some construction ability. It was mainly geared towards constructing replacement parts and such for damaged ships. The good news was that the _Baalkpaan Bay _was one of Fleet's two food-producing ships, which would hopefully prevent the survivors of the fleet from starving after the stored foodstuff in the sealed warehouses onboard the _Megaroad-07 _where consumed.

The survival of the _Greenleaf _along with the _Wrench, Toolbox, _and the _Boron _is quite a relief for it would make things a bit easier in the long run. The later pair of ships were once Zentradi Picket Ships captured from Uncultured Zentradi in various ways over the years. The _Toolbox, _along with three sister ships, had been converted into dedicated Tender Ships for the use of the Fleet's Escorts. Basically, an earlier version of his own ship the _Anaheim_ just without the capability to fully repair a ship. The _Toolbox _now supported the similarly sized Support Ship, carrying needed cargo and supplies to allow _Anaheim_ to do its job. The _Boron _meanwhile pretty much gutted the ship to install a dedicated mineral refinery facility allowing resources mined from the smaller mining ships to be refined into needed minerals for construction of anything the fleet required. Hence combined with the smaller _Greenleaf _the fleet retained the ability to mine resources required to keep it running. Though without a dedicated factory ship those resources won't be able to be used to construct new ships and weapons. Still it was a relief to have them now.

The _Greenleaf _and the _Wrench_, along with the mentioned damaged transports, meanwhile, were converted demilitarized_ Oberth _Class Destroyers that the fleet had mass-produced in good numbers to support the larger _Northampton_ Class Frigates a few years ago when the Fleet started to encounter elements of an extensive Zentradi Main Fleet. These new Destroyers were quite different from their older counterparts from Space War I sporting a pair of double-barreled particle beam cannon turrets flanking the ship's bow, and the original massive VLS Missile Launcher receiving a slight upgrade. After the introduction of the new _Ontario _Class Cruiser to the Fleet the Destroyers were removed from service with several being demilitarized and converted into other purposes in the fleet like transports which had the VLS Launcher ripped out along with some of the crew spaces to give the ship quite a larger cargo bay. One such ship the _Greenleaf _became a dedicated mining ship sacrificing its VLS Missile Launcher to sport a hangar for a good number of work pods and worker frames to mine asteroids for needed minerals for the fleet. While the _Wrench _was a privately-owned ship that pretty much helped maintain and support the numerous privately and civilian-owned Valkyries that the fleet sported. The owners of the _Wrench _would later end up becoming the company Zodiac Design Works and would receive needed factory space on the Fleet's Factory Ships though they retained the _Wrench _as a sort of auxiliary ship. It was a relief to have that ship intact for with only the _Macross Vanguard _sporting needed dedicated fighter facilities in the fleet to fully support their fighters the addition of the _Wrench _would go a long way to keep their Valkyries in working condition in the near future.

Marcus shook his head to clear his thoughts and looked around the bridge to see his officers starting to recover from their emotional reactions to the news of the _Megaroad-07_ and the Civilian Ships. He couldn't blame them, for he was still worried for his own wife and his kids, but he had placed that in the back of his mind till he either found them alive or if they died in the attack on the colony ship. Only then would he allow himself to break down, till then he had a job to do. Turning his attention back to the operations officer he found the man going through a few more reports. This time on the Valkyrie squadrons and what their status happened to be currently.

"Thank you, Commander, for the report. Keep me appraised on anything else going on," Marcus said to the operation's officer Lieutenant Commander Samuel Granger, formerly the commander of the Frigate _Hermione, _who had been heavily damaged during the battle with the uncultured Zentradi leaving the Commander injured. He had been attached to Marcus and his team since he had previously lived on an _Atoll _Class with the Ninth Long Range Colonization Fleet. He had taken over operations when the Vajra had first arrived.

"Understood Captain," the man replied, turning his attention to the operations station and the reports on the Valkyrie Squadrons while Marcus looked up at the display screen with a pained look on his face. This was a disaster, and a half for things were quite bad for the fleet. He didn't even know where they were and if they were in range of another Colony Fleets. Just as he thought that he saw the navigation officer crying out with a pleasing sounding shout.

"That did it!" the man said, pleased looking up at Marcus, making him want to facepalm and cry for his earlier thoughts had been entirely correct.

"Okay. First, Ensign how far did you get with those time increments?" he asked the man, almost dreading the answer.

"Two years and a month," he almost chirped out, making Marcus sigh in some relief for that wasn't too bad. Though he silently rolled his eyes at the younger man's energy at the report, he couldn't really blame him, for he must have been frustrated earlier at not able to fulfill his earlier orders.

"Good. The Fold Stasis wasn't as long as I thought it would be," he said with a sigh of relief while he noticed a few of his other officers also sighing in some relief.

"Next what does the Position Check say is our current location?" he asked the man who looking confused at his statement blinked at him for a moment before leaning forward at his station reading something before, he outright reared back from his station in some shock which made Marcus dread what he was going to say.

"Sir, we are smack in the middle of the Demon Sector!" the young ensign replied, barely managed to say, making Marcus look at him in shock. The other officers could only stare at him in their own surprise. The Demon Sector was something that the NUNS had gotten from their allied Zentradi. According to Zentradi records it was where some of the fiercest combat happened during the last days of the Civil War that tore apart the former Stellar Republic of the Protoculture. Planets ripped apart by heavy reaction weapons or at least wiped all life from their surfaces while other planets were destroyed by newly introduced Fold Weapons, which ended up distorting Fold Space through the Sector. This prevented Fold Space from being used for travel or communication. This meant that the remains of their Colonization Fleet were stranded and not able to call for help from any nearby ally. This had moved from disaster to outright catastrophe much to their horror.

**-o-o-o-**

Unnoticed by the damaged Colonization Fleet, the single Colonial Raptor of Racetrack and Skulls continued to record everything happening with this new unknown fleet from its hiding spot inside an old alien wrecked ship. After a few hours of recording everything she could of the unknown fleet Racetrack decided to risk a short-range FTL jump out of the system before then returning to the fleet. Therefore, a moment later she powered up the Raptor and with a brief flash of light it disappeared from the wrecked alien starship. The flash of light was briefly seen by one of the remaining VF-20 Wasps now patrolling around the edge of the fleet, but the pilot didn't think much of it, for they were more concerned if their family had survived the destruction of the _Megaroad-07_. Something that they would remember when a couple days later several larger white flashes saw the appearance of ships nearby the colony fleet. Till then the pilot only continued to worry as they continued to patrol around the damaged fleet that is their home.

-o-End-o-

**Post Chapter Notes**

That is a wrap for this chapter, ladies, and gentlemen. Yet another info-dump chapter, I'm sorry to say, but I promise this should be the only one for a while. Even then some exciting information in this chapter for you Macross fans to look over. Though sadly only a small number of ships remain from the overall larger Colony Fleet.

Speaking of which like the _Megaroad-09 _Fleet, the _Megaroad-07 _Fleet sports several small civilian-run freighters and transports. As mentioned in **Meeting **when I was briefly talking about the _Horizon, _the early Megaroad Type Colony Fleets didn't have the complete self-sustaining environment of the _New Macross _Class ships with its larger Auxiliary Ships like the _Sunflower _and _Three Star _Class ships. Though I think they are missing one or two needed auxiliary ship like some sort of mining ships. Like the one that I briefly mentioned in this chapter. Therefore, they had many ships that carried much of their gathered supplies, including water, extra food, mined minerals, spare parts, and other such supplies or resources required to keep the Fleet running smoothly in the long run. Since they didn't have the armor or barriers of the Defense Force ships, they didn't really last long against the Vajra Heavy Soldiers attacking the fleet.

Next up, I need to mention that I changed the rank of Marcus Rush from Commander to Captain since I think it was better rank for him to have due to him being the senior surviving officer of the Fleet. Though he does have the recently introduced Lieutenant Commander Vince Grant and Lieutenant Commander Samuel Granger to lean on in the chapters ahead. The latter is descended from Lieutenant Emma Granger, who is said to be the auxiliary tactical officer of the SDF-1 taking over when Misa Hayase is off duty and not because I am fan of Harry Potter. She is from the Super Dimensional Fortress Macross PlayStation 2 Video Game and is named for the character from Harry Potter. I had some fun and named Samuel's old Frigate _Hermione_. Too bad, it is most likely destroyed along with the majority of the fleet's frigates.

This brings us to something else with this chapter. If you have sharp eyes and a fan of particular book series by Taylor Anderson, you may recognize the names of the Frigates that survived the battle are from that series along with the single Cruiser that survived. Speaking of which I don't think I have explained the class name for the Stealth Cruiser we see in both Frontier and Delta that I am using in my stories. It is mainly because Northampton is a town in England. Therefore, I figured I name the cruiser after a Province in Canada. Though that won't matter with ship names since they are pretty much all over the freaking place apparently.

Anyhow. That is about it for these notes. Oh. We are getting close to the end of National Novel Writing Month, with only a handful of chapters completed between the two stories I set out to write. However, no worries for fans of the stories since I am going to be writing all the way to end of the month, no matter if I go over fifty thousand words. I will continue writing for the first two weeks in December and then take a break for the Holidays. Then if I haven't finished at least one of the stories by then, I may take it up again in the New Year. That said, I shall see you when I post the next chapter of **Meeting Along the Stars **in a few days. Till then, Ciao!

**EDIT (12/2/2019): Like I mentioned in the notes in Chapter Three I have changed a few things in this chapter to reflect the changes I made in that chapter. Basically, I fixed my earlier screw-up. This includes adding the converted Zentradi Picket Ships, which is something I kind of reflected on in a previous chapter of **Meeting**. I also added a few minor edits here and there to make it read a bit better, which I got from some feedback from a few of my readers. **


	4. Chapter Three: First Contact

**Chapter Three: First Contact **

_The Demon Sector, as translated from the original Zentradi, was a large sector of space that the Zentradi had been avoiding for millennia. This was thanks to Fold Space in the sector being damaged in some way, which prevented any Fold Travel and Fold Communications to the rest of the Galaxy. This was mainly thanks to the fierce fighting going on in the sector between the remaining forces of the Stellar Republic and the newly formed Supervision Army. During said fighting, the first Fold Bombs were used, which twisted and corrupted the local Fold Space. _

_However, some theories exist in some Academic circles that there is another major reason for the Zentradi to call this space Demon Sector. One such theory speculates that this sector sports a couple of the Protodeviln, which controlled the Supervision Army hidden away ready to restart the war. This theory is pretty much proved wrong during the days following the end of the Varuta War when records recovered from the planet Varuta explained the final days of the Civil War. A couple other theories have that there is some other alien race hiding in the sector which had fought against the Zentradi in the past. These theories are often scoffed at for the Zentradi had vast numbers of ships and troops therefore such an enemy would have to be vastly larger numbers then the Zentradi, which made no sense. _

_Then when the insectoid alien race known as the Vajra entered the scene in 2047, some theories were introduced saying that the Demon Sector sports the location of the Vajra Homeworld somewhere within its confines. This theory became ever more popular as the years went on as more and more information was discovered on the Vajra. Finally, when the Vajra War erupted in between the 55__th__ Long Range Colonization Fleet, _Macross Frontier_, and the Vajra this theory was seriously considered as truth by many. However, it was finally debunked when the 55__th__ Colonization Fleet managed to discover the Vajra Homeworld lightyears away from the Demon Sector closer to the Galactic Core. The following settlement of the Homeworld as the Nova Terra Colony and some inquiries through the Singer Ranka Lee to the Vajra remaining in this galaxy pretty much destroyed this theory forever. Though some interesting tidbits of the Demon Sector were revealed through this communication like that the Vajra avoid the Demon Sector themselves as the damaged Fold Space makes them feel uneasy. Especially when it cuts off Vajra from the Galaxy-Wide Fold Network they have due to the damaged Fold Space. _

_Whichever theory you believed, there is some reason why the Demon Sector is generally feared by the Zentradi. Was it simply due to what happened here in the last days of the Civil War, or was there some sort of alien race hiding away in the sector? Who knows? _

\- Taken from The Demon Sector: Fact or Fiction by Dennis Wickes, an article posted in The Grand Galaxy e-magazine

**-o-o-o-**

**War Room  
****Battlestar **_**Galactica  
**_**2.5 Hours After Contact **

Over two hours after the first reconnaissance Raptor arrival at the fleet with the news of some sort of a strange phenomenon happening in the star system, they were scouting, which concerned many people throughout the Fleet. The following second Raptor forty minutes after the first and its gathered data sent a wave of shock and surprise throughout the fleet. It was for this reason that the War Room of the Battlestar _Galactica _was packed full with many officers of the military ships of the fleet and a few civilians from the rest of the fleet. At the main map table at the center of the room Admiral Adama stood with Senior Lieutenant Edmondson, Commander Ward of the _Pegasus_, Colonel Saul Tigh, Doctor Gaius Baltar, and Major Brian Carter as they waited for the pictures taken with the Camera mounted on Lieutenant's Raptor to be delivered. Till then Major Carter and Doctor Baltar were quietly questioning the young Raptor pilot about what she had seen while the Admiral was discussing something or another with the Commander along with Colonel Tigh. Finally, the armored hatch leading to the War Room slid open, and a technician carrying a pair of large envelopes entered the room, which brought a hush to the entire room. The technician then somehow managed to fight through the packed room to stand at the other side of the Map Table.

"Sirs, the pictures taken from the Camera Mount of Raptor 249," the man said with a salute placing the pair of envelopes on the table. The Admiral nodded at the young man as he returned the salute.

"Thank you, Specialist. You are dismissed," he said, which made the man nod, and with another salute, he once more fought through the packed room and out of the hatch. After several moments of staring at the pair of innocent-looking envelopes, the Admiral finally reached forward and opened the first one. He then took out several glossy pictures and spread them out across the map table. The second envelope was then opened, and a few more pictures joined the rest spread out across the table. It was then that the officers and such spread across the sides of the Map Table started to inspect them.

The various photos showed a variety of different subjects, including a good shot of the sizeable sphere-like phenomenon that suddenly appeared with the ships. Another shot showed the sphere shrinking and blackened outlines of ships starting to emerge from the sphere. Other pictures where zoomed-in shots of the different ships and wrecks that appeared from the sphere. One of these pictures was being inspected by Major Carter which showed a large ship split into two halves. Another showing what looked to be some sort of small warship was being looked at by Doctor Baltar. While Colonel Tigh was looking at a picture showing some kind of damaged fighter floating in space while another picture showed a similar fighter out on patrol around the fleet. One final picture was being inspected by the stone-like face of the Admiral which showed a pair of what looked like humans with their arms wrapped around one another floating in space clearly dead from exposure.

"I just can't believe this," the voice of one of the officers mentioned with a shake of their head as they stared down at the various pictures. This started a variety of different similar reactions from the rest of the room. This went on for several minutes before the Admiral finally looked up from staring at that one picture.

"That's enough," he said with a frown, and the various officers started to quiet down. The Admiral then sighed and removed his glasses from his face to rub his face. He then turned to look over at the officers and such gathered around the map table.

"Your reactions Major?" the Admiral first asked the engineer with a wave at the pictures still spread out across the table. The Major sighed as he looked up from another image showing a second large ship that was circular in nature.

"Well, sir first I believe this is some sort of Colonization Fleet. For these two ships looked to be some sort of Colony Ships," the Major mentioned tapping the two pictures he had been inspecting with a long finger. He frowned as he stared down at the two pictures.

"They are quite different from any proposed Colony Ship Design that came from either the Colonial Fleet's own Department of Shipbuilding and Design or a Civilian Agency. For one, these ships appear to have actual real-life cities at their core. Something no one in S&D ever even imagined doing with any of their own designs. This leads me to believe that they are more than just a simple Colonization Fleets but are actual colonies themselves with all that entails," the Major explained with a shake of his head while Doctor Baltar looked up from his own perusal of another picture showing a different, more slightly larger warship, to look over at the man with a frown.

"If I remember right Major, there was a design from Caprican Aerospace Design Company that had a civilian ship with a city at its core just like these ones. They were modified from the _Cloud _Series Space Liners that they already had been building for several years," the Doctor mentioned with had the Major nodding his head at the civilian.

"Yes, Doctor, that's true, but that wasn't really a colony ship but a sort of mobile vacation spot that moved in between the colonies sporting casinos, hotels, and other sorts of things such a place would need. In fact, I think the _Star Cloud _that my team managed to get working was, in fact, the prototype for that design. The _Cloud Nine _was also supposed to be converted to a similar design if I remember right," the Major explained as he stares back down at the images of the two colony ship designs.

"No. I would call these ships, not Colony Ships really, but City Ships which can operate as Colony Ships are basically mobile colonies," the Major continued on making the Doctor nod in some agreement as he too looked down at the pictures of the colony ships.

"What I am wondering is what type of weapon can slice through a ship like that for it clearly did not end up that way through other means," the gruff voice of Colonel Tigh mentioned making the other officers nod in some agreement of the Colonel. Doctor Baltar hummed in some thought before picking up one of the pictures, which showed a zoomed-in view of a wreck of a large warship of some sort.

"Even though these pictures really don't show all that much. I do believe that these weapons are not kinetics as we would know them as but maybe something else entirely," the Doctor mentioned tapping his finger on the large turret on the front deck of the ship.

"What do you think it would be then, Doctor?" the Admiral asked with a frown staring over at him, making the man hum in some thought before looking back at the older man.

"I read the report you forwarded to me about that alien fighter a team found in that debris field a few systems back. Thanks to that report, mostly the fighter's main weapon, I think this weapon is sort of particle beam weapon," the man reported making a few gasps of surprise from the gathered officer while a few others scoffed in some disbelieve.

"That seems to be a good guess, Doctor," the Admiral mentioned with a nod of his head at the man before staring at the other gathered officers, mostly those who had scoffed at the Doctor's suggestion.

"You need all to remember that ever since we entered this sector of space, we have started to find stuff that we cannot explain with our current understanding. That includes planets that have bombed with some sort of largescale weapon leaving behind wastelands, planets that have been all-out destroyed by a weapon of unbelievable power, and various wrecks of old ships in numerous ancient battlefields," the Admiral mentioned looking over at the officers seeming a few flinch at his stare while others nodded in agreement at his gentle rebuke. With a nod he turned to around at the gathered senior officers to see if they had anything else to say about the pictures, which he soon noticed the frown on the face of Commander Ward as he stared down at one of the photos.

"Commander Ward? You have something to say?" the Admiral asked the younger man who blinked up at him for a moment before nodding and placing the picture down on the map table before taking a deep breath.

"Whoever these guys happen to be Admiral, they are apparently familiar with whoever built some of the wrecked ships we have seen in a few systems," the man mentioned nodding down to the picture he had been studying.

"Does that ship look familiar to you, Admiral?" the man continued sliding the picture over to the Admiral to inspect. The Admiral looked at the Commander with a frown before looking down at the picture for a moment seeing some sort of alien-looking ship that really did not look like a human, or at least a human from the Twelve Colonies, designed it. After a moment of studying the ship he then got what the Commander was trying to convey.

"It looks quite similar to the shipwreck that was nearby the fighter we recovered," the Admiral mentioned with a thoughtful look on his face. The Commander nodded at him before taking back the picture to pass it along with the other officers at the table.

"It is more than just similar, sir. It is almost a dead ringer for that ship if the projections, made by Major Carter's Engineers, were correct," the Commander replied, nodding to the engineer who after looking down at the passed picture, making him look up in some shock. Like a few other different wrecked ships that more intact then the others, his engineers had made projections of what they had looked like undamaged. This ship really did almost look exactly like the projection of that ship.

"There a few additions to the ship's hull, and sports a vastly different paint scheme but it is pretty much of the same class as that alien ship Admiral," the Major reported with a shake of his head passing the picture over to one of the observing officers, one who had been reasonable for the mentioned projections. The woman blanched in shock at the picture and passed it back to her commander. The Admiral nodded at this before, looking over the rest of the senior officers gathered.

"Then we have this picture of look to be human bodies spilling out of the cut-in-half colony ship," the Admiral mentioned tapping the picture he had been inspecting earlier before passing it onto the other officers who looked shaken at what was displayed on it. For many, it was not the first time they had seen human bodies floating dead in space, but that was from their own ships, not some sort of alien colony ship.

"You think these people are from Earth, then Admiral?" Doctor Baltar asked with a frown leaning against the map table, staring at the old Admiral who stared right back at the other man with an almost hostile glare on his face.

"For without one of these bodies to personally inspect, I can't say if they are actually human," the man continued with a shake of his head. The Admiral only nodded at this before looking over the rest of his officers, seeing them look a bit shaken about all of this though there was a sense of hope among them all.

"Honestly, Doctor, while I hope these people are from Earth, but I am not going to make a decision solely on that hope. No. These people, whoever they happen to be sport some unknown technology that will allow us to further stay ahead of the Cylons," the Admiral mentioned with a nod to the Doctor who only nodded back while the other officers stared at the Admiral in some shock.

"You don't attend to attack these people do you, sir?" Major Carter asked after several moments of silence along the gathered officers. A few gasps from the rest of the officers while Colonel Tigh and Commander Wade turned to glare at the man while the Admiral only chuckled at the question.

"No, Major, I don't indeed to attack them at all. Especially since we really don't know all that much about them. It would be folly to attack them to try to steal these new technologies from them," the Admiral mentioned with a shake of his head.

"Besides the President would have my head if I gave that order," he continued on a moment later, making more than one officer snort in some amusement at that statement for the President would really be upset with the Admiral if he ended up doing that.

"No, the only thing I am planning on doing is sending a ship to their location. Ask if they require any assistance and maybe get to know them better, which may get us at least some of these new technologies in the deal. However, if they tell us to get lost then we will inform them about the Cylons, then move on and ignore them for we really cannot afford to have another enemy out there," the Admiral mentioned looking over the gathered officers seeing the majority of them nodding in some understanding at this statement. Though one of the officers was frowning and shaking his head at this statement.

"And if they are actually the Thirteenth Tribe?" this officer suddenly asked out loud, making the Admiral look down at him with a frown his own at the man's tone.

"Then we celebrate and ask them if they can take us to Earth. If they still tell us to get lost or something like that, then we will try to find Earth by ourselves with what we already have," he answered, making the other senior officers nod in agreement with the old Admiral. However, one officer could only shake his head once more at this with an offended look on his face.

"They are the Thirteenth Tribe! They should help us, or if they don't, then we should make them for that is our right as fellow Tribes of Kobol," the man mentioned with a superior look on his face. The other officers looked at him in some shock while the Admiral only calmly raised an eyebrow at the man before shaking his head sadly at the man.

"Didn't you just hear me? I said we won't be attacking them, for we cannot afford to make another enemy for our people. Hence, even if they are the Thirteenth Tribe and refuse to accept our help then I am not going to force them," the Admiral replied, staring down at the man with an almost disappointed look on his weathered face. The officer looking disgruntled could only stare at the Admiral before scoffing and retreating. That done, the Admiral once more looked over the officers before looking over at Doctor Baltar.

"However, nothing is going to happen till the Doctor, and I brief the President on this, for she may just decide to do anything about this," the Admiral mentioned with a nod to the Doctor.

"Till then, you are all dismissed," the man directed with a nod to the door. The gathered officers then start to trickle out of the hatch while the Admiral gathered up the pictures and placed them back in their envelopes before handing them over to the Doctor.

"Doctor, a Raptor should already be waiting on the hangar deck to take us to the _Colonial One _to inform the President. I shall be right behind you after I discuss something with Colonel Tigh," the Admiral mentioned making the younger man nod taking the envelopes and moving towards the hatch. The Admiral meanwhile turned to stare at the patiently waiting Colonel.

"I want you to keep an eye on those officers. We cannot afford to have someone to disturb anything about these newcomers," he directed his old friend with a frown.

"Aye, sir. I shall take care of it," the man mentioned before ducking out of the hatchway leaving the Admiral alone in the War Room for a moment before he sighed and followed behind the Colonel. He really hoped something good came out of any meeting with these newcomers for he really did not want to find out what else they had to fight their enemies with and he took a brief moment to remember some of the ravaged worlds they had passed over the past couple months making him shiver slightly. Sighing once more the Admiral could only hope and pray as he started to head for the ship's hangar deck. He had a Raptor to catch and a President to brief about all of this.

**-o-o-o-**

**Command Bridge **

**City Ship **_**Island Mayan **_

**Nine Hours After Arrival **

On the bridge of the City Ship _Island Mayan _things had changed drastically in the twelve hours since their arrival in this unknown solar system. For one, there were a few more officers on duty at the bridge stations having been either found alive onboard the doomed _Megaroad-07 _or been transferred from one of the other intact ships in the fleet. Another change was that there was a lot of activity as one the City Ship was surrounded by the remaining warships of the Colony Fleet's escort fleet along with a few squadrons of variable fighters on patrol and second the retrieval operation of the civilian shelters on the larger colony ship was well underway. Not to mention some needed clean-up of the gathered debris and such from all the destroyed or heavily damaged ships. Already several of the large civilian shelters had been recovered from the intact portions of the _Megaroad-07_ and the civilians found within getting back onto their feet in the city ship's own residence section with the support of the remaining government agencies of the Colony Fleet's government.

Elsewhere the Fleet Support Ship _Anaheim _had undocked from the larger form of the City Ship and was in the thick of the recovery operation. To many observers, _Anaheim _bore substantial similarity with the _Guantanamo _Class Escort Carrier, just sporting a nose like extension that covered the front of the ship. It also sported a pair of exterior docking bays on either side of the ship where the carrier's flight bays where once and on the bottom of the ship a sizeable extendable scaffold was mounted. Now two of the damaged _Northampton_ Class Frigates were secure in the exterior docking bays on either side of the ship while the similar-sized Habitation Ship _Bay of Storms _was docked in the scaffold. Buzzing all around the Support Ship were several small work shuttles and worker pods recovering the scattered pieces of debris, which include half-destroyed variable fighters. Currently, several work shuttles and pods were picking through the half-destroyed hulk of the Factory Ship.

On the overbridge of the City Ship, Captain Marcus Rush was the center of all this activity directing everything going on in the pitiful remnant of the Seventh Long Range Colonization Fleet. After finding out that his family was safe and secure on the city-ship after being retrieved from a shelter the man had thrown himself into his work. He kind of blamed himself for what had happened to the fleet, for it had been his plan that saw them being not only frozen in time for two years, but dragged into a portion of space that was pretty much a dead zone not allowing them to communicate for help or to send a ship to get help. Hence, he had been in the thick of things ever since their arrival in this solar system and getting his people back on track. He was now supervising the ongoing salvage of the Factory Ship. He hoped that they could find some intact pieces of equipment.

Behind him, the hatchway slid open to let in a feminine figure in a pilot suit complete with a helmet that they removed as they stepped through the hatch letting long azure hair fall down their back. The revealed face was young and pretty which was spoiled by an unpleased expression on her face as she stared at the back of Captain Rush who was busy inspecting a few holographic screens in front of him.

"Marcus," she called out softly, making the man jolt in some surprise at her voice. He turned away from the holograph screen with a surprised expression on his face.

"Komilia, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with the kids?" he asked, confusedly staring at her and raising an eyebrow in some surprise at her getup.

"The kids are fine they are with your sister in the Island Mayan General Hospital," the woman, Komilia Rush, wife to the Captain, replied with a shake of head sending her hair flying a bit, which made her sigh for really need to get it trimmed. Marcus sighed at this thanking once more for the idea of making the Hospitals on the _Megaroad-07 _being able to be fully sealed making them into their own large survival shelters. It was thanks to that upgrade that allowed his sister Marlene to live through the destruction of the Colony Ship. It also allowed much of the trained medical personnel to be kept alive along with their patients of which had been transferred over to the Island Mayan General Hospital.

"Can I ask why you are in a flight suit, my dear?" he asked her after making the woman snort and come up alongside him to stare down at the busy officers spread throughout the bridge.

"An officer asked for volunteers who had flight experience to help in the search and rescue operation. I left the kids with your sister and volunteered," she replied, making her husband sigh and shake his head. He knew that someone was going around asking for volunteers, but he did not know that his wife had volunteered, but he wasn't all that surprised. She would have wanted to help somehow for that is what she happened to be. Though he briefly wondered why no one had told him that his wife had volunteered for flight duty, then again, he had passed on the reasonability for the Search and Rescue Operation to Lieutenant Commander Granger.

"I take it they shoved you into a fighter then instead of a shuttle or pod?" Marcus mentioned, which made his wife snort and nod at him. Marcus could only chuckle at this, for it did make sense for she was a Jenius after all. She was literally born to fly a Valkyrie after all.

"Yeah. They managed to recover a couple of the old Thunderbolts from the Big Seven's storage hangars," she replied before shaking her head and staring over at her husband.

"That said, I was teamed up with another pilot, and the latest news from the recovery operation had the woman head here. I just went with her," she explained, making Marcus blink in some surprise at this for he hadn't heard anything significant about the recovery operation onboard the _Megaroad-07_ then again he hadn't really been paying all that much attention to it after the salvage operation started on the Factory Ship.

"Oh?" he said, but before his wife could say anything in reply the door slid open once more to let in another flight suited feminine figure into the bridge. With a sigh the figure removed her helmet and shook out her blond hair. Marcus blinked in some surprise, for he quickly recognized her as Katrina Anne Darlian, the current personal aide to President Roger Herman, daughter of previous President Michael Darlian and fighter ace pilot Sabrina Darlian. Marcus also knew she had become a close friend to his wife after being held in Fold Stasis for twenty years saw many of her older friends now older and with families of their own or had passed away during that time. It was thanks to Komilia that Katrina's interest in flying was reignited which saw her taking out her mother's old VF-9 Cutlass when she wanted.

"Captain Rush, with the confirmed death of President Herman and his Cabinet, it now falls onto me to step in as acting president till the people can fully elect myself or another into office," the woman said making Marcus stare at her in some surprise before straightening to attention and saluting her. He really shouldn't have been surprised at this, for she was one of the only figures in the Herman Administration to be confirmed alive right now. Therefore, it fell onto her shoulders to reform the government.

"Madam President, what are your orders?" he asked her with a nod of his head. She smirked slightly at him before turning to look at Komilia which made his stomach clench tightly for the two women had something planned, and he was not going to like it; he was sure.

"Yes, Captain. From what I understand you have been on duty for almost twelve hours, therefore, I think you need to spend some time with your family while I take over here," she said to him making him sigh but before he could protest he saw the glint in the eyes of his wife making him flinch slightly. He was however surprised by Katrina leaning forward to stare at him.

"Captain, from what I understand, you are the most senior surviving military officer I have left right now. Therefore, I need you rested and relaxed, allowing you an easier time to advise me in these trying times," the young woman outright whispered to him, making Marcus sigh at this, knowing she was entirely correct.

"Understood Madam President," he replied to her with a short bow before turning to see about letting the rest of the officers know what was going on when the officer now in charge of the operations station suddenly jerked in some surprise drawing the attention of Marcus and a few other nearby officers. The man leaned forward and entered a few commands into his station before looking up, unintentionally meeting the eyes of Marcus.

"Captain! I am detecting a single large ship that just appeared about six kilometers from the fleet," the young officer reported making Marcus look at him in some surprise. It also drew the attention of the rest of the bridge crew.

"And we did not detect any sort of Fold Signature Lieutenant?" he asked him with a frown while the new President and his wife looked on with their own surprise.

"Negative Captain! It just appeared," the officer returned, making Marcus hum in some thought looking up at the holographic screens which now showed the unknown ship.

"Interesting. What can you say about it right now, Lieutenant?" he inquired of the officer who leaned forward and started to look at a few readings from his station.

"First of all, sir, it isn't using any sort of Reaction-Based Power Source, but what looks to be a series of advanced Fusion Reactors. Secondly, it is around fourteen hundred meters in length and five hundred in width. It also sports some sort of pods that are along its sides. I am guessing they are some sort detached flight bays. That said, I can't detect anything like a Fold Drive or any other notable source of FTL," the man reported making Marcus eye the displayed ship in some interest, but before he could inquire any further Lieutenant Valerie at Communications looked up in some surprise of her own.

"Sir! I am now detecting a signal from that ship. They are trying to communicate with us," the woman reported making Marcus now look quite interested in what was going on while the two women at his side exchanged looks.

"Can you play it, Lieutenant?" Marcus asked the communication which only nodded up at him, and after a moment, a burst static sounded through the speakers throughout the bridge before finally a voice could be heard speaking.

"_Attention Unknown Ships! This is the Battlestar Galactica representing the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and its people. We have noticed that you are in some sort of distress, and we are standing by to render any assistance you may require," _the voice could hear saying in some sort of alien language.

"Sounds similar to Zentradi," an officer mused from another was about to say something in response before stopping and turning to look at Katrina, which drew the attention of the rest of the bridge to the young woman.

"Madam President, your thoughts on this?" he asked her, and a few gasps of surprise emerged from the officers spread across the bridge. They had been busy with their duties to have heard her earlier after she entered the bridge. A few of the officers stood from their stations and saluted her, making her nod at them before turning her attention to Marcus.

"Well, I do believe we have a First Contact Situation," was she could say really to that.

-o-End-o-

**Post Chapter Notes**

This chapter was pretty much fighting me for a bit; therefore it got delayed longer as I tried to get it to work. Sigh. This was mostly the start of the middle of the first scene and the start of the second scene. Not to mention, I kind of went through a couple different versions of the President, and since she is going to be one of the main characters into the next couple chapters, I needed to get her right. I then finally ended up making the President a sort of blend of Relena Peacecraft from Gundam W and a couple of different other characters. One such aspect is Padme Amidala from Star Wars, which I think makes her a bit cooler in that she can pilot a fighter if required. Also, apparently, I kind of goofed last chapter when I was describing the remainder of the Seventh Colony Fleet. A couple ships were based on captured Zentradi Picket Ships while others were based on the _Oberth _Class. This is featured at the end of the first scene where the Colonials notice it bears a similarity to a wrecked ship they had seen before in another debris field. I have changed it in the last chapter. Therefore, you can go reread it if you wish.

Speaking of ships, I finally got around to fully explaining what type of ship the _Anaheim _happens to be after mentioning over the past couple of chapters. It is a variant of the _Guantanamo _Class Carrier, which converts it into a Fleet Tender and Support Ship for the military ships of the fleet. It removes much of its capacity to carry fighters and replaces with needed equipment to keep the Defense Fleet running more smoothly. Just imagine a _Guantanamo _Class ship with a pair of exterior docking bays on either side of the ship where the carrier decks are and a large foldable scaffold on the bottom. This design is a retread of an earlier idea I had for the factory ship from Lucky Miracle just modified a bit to serve as a Fleet Tender.

Anyways. An exciting chapter all around. This is the start of the First Contact between the Macross people and the Colonials. I originally wanted this chapter to cover the First Contact itself, but the chapter kind of was getting a bit long, and if I kept it going, then this chapter would be the longest chapter of the entire series so far. So, I stopped it here for now. Not to mention, after the first contact, the first part, or cour, of this story is finished which means I can put my full attention onto finish **Meeting**. Also, I think this First Contact is going to be quite different from that of Lucky Miracle since it is a bit grander with two almost equal fleets meeting for the first time. One thing to mention here. I initially want to see about having the communication hail from the _Galactica _be in full-on zentradi language text, but I don't think FFN will support it, therefore, just put it in italics like I did for Lucky Miracle.

That said. As of this chapter, NaNoWriMo is now finished, but no worries, as promised earlier I am, going to be continuing to write for these two stories till around December 15 so I can start to enjoy my holiday. For those interested I can do a thorough breakdown post of what I wrote and how many words I managed to write during that time.

Alright, enough of my talking. I do apologize for the late chapter, but this chapter was really a pain to write, and some issues I was having at work kind of distracted me. That said. The next chapter should be up once I get the next chapter of **Meeting** finished. Till then. Ciao!


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